ESSAYS 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH 



AND ON THE 



PROGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



BY 

SAMUEL BAILE Y, 

AUTHOR OF 

essays on the formation and publication of opinions 
" a review of Berkeley's theory of vision," 

&c. &c. 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 



LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 

PATERNOSTER- ROW, 

1344. 




1 



^ 






London : 

Printed by A. Spottiswoode, 

New- Street- Square. 






PREFACE 



THE SECOND EDITION. 



The Volume in which the two following Essays 
first appeared, in the year 1829, was on the whole 
favourably received ; so much so, at least, as to be 
out of print in two or three years. The Author 
has since been repeatedly urged, in various quar- 
ters, by strangers as well as friends, to publish 
another edition; a step which he has hitherto de- 
clined, partly on account of the tardy and limited 
encouragement extended to such works, but chiefly 
because he was dissatisfied with the principal Essay, 
as a less adequate view of the subject than he was 
capable of presenting, and he did not wish it to 
re-appear without such a complete revision as other 
studies prevented him for a season from bestowing 
upon it. 

Within the last year, however, he has had an 
opportunity of performing this task. He has en- 

a 2 






IV PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

larged the Essay by additional considerations and 
arguments, and thrown the whole into a more 
systematic form, so as to be less unworthy, he 
trusts, of the great questions which it ventures to 
discuss. 

In the second Essay, which is of inferior import- 
ance, he has not found it requisite to make any 
other alteration or addition worth notice than ap- 
pending to it a few Notes. 

Besides these two Essays, the original volume 
contained another, " On the Fundamental Principle 
of all Evidence and Expectation," not here re- 
printed. The reasons for the omission are, that 
it is a Treatise calculated for a different class of 
readers ; and, more especially, that the Author has 
not at present either the leisure or the inclination 
to give it that deliberate revisal which he conceives 
it to require. He may probably publish it here- 
after, in an improved and expanded form, either 
alone or in company with other treatises more 
congruous with it in character than the two Essays 
which this brief explanation is intended to intro- 
duce. 

January 29. 1844. 



PREFACE 



THE FIRST EDITION. 



Few words will be necessary in introducing the 
present Volume to the Public. 

Some of those who did the Author the honour of 
pronouncing a favourable judgment upon a former 
Essay of his on the Formation of Opinions, ex- 
pressed at the same time a regret that he had passed 
too lightly over one very important part of the sub- 
ject ; namely, the conduct of men in the appli- 
cation of their means and faculties to the investi- 
gation of truth. While he had explained more or 
less to their satisfaction in what manner the mind 
is affected by the circumstances in which it is 
placed, and the inevitable determination of its views 
by the evidence presented to it, they thought that 
he had indicated in too cursory a way the duties of 
mankind in the collection and examination of that 
evidence, the effect of which, when once brought 



VI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

before the understanding, is so completely uncon- 
trollable by the will. • 

In consequence of these suggestions, he applied 
himself to the subject, and produced the treatise 
on the Pursuit of Truth, which stands first in the 
Volume, and which he presents to those who took 
an interest in his former Essay, in the hope that 
it may prove a not unacceptable companion to it. 

In respect to the second Essay, he has only to 
offer a remark on its external appearance. It is, as 
the reader will observe, in Dialogue, a form not 
very frequently used by modern writers in the ex- 
position of philosophical views, and adopted on the 
present occasion rather by way of experiment than 
from any opinion of its preferableness. After con- 
sidering what has been said by Hurd and others on 
the employment of real or fictitious, ancient or 
modern names, he has preferred designating his 
speakers by simple letters, as being less repulsive to 
the taste than any other expedient, except that of 
using the names of eminent characters of past days, 
which he was precluded from adopting, because the 
opinions expressed in these conversations have re- 
ference to the actual times in which we live. This 
is a point after all of little importance in philo- 
sophical discussions, since the parts of the dia- 
logue assigned to the different speakers are in- 
tended to exhibit opinions rather than character, 
and may be considered as only embodying in lan- 
guage the various views which successively present 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Vll 

themselves to the same mind in reflecting on the 
subject selected. 

The Third Essay * embraces topics which the 
Author can scarcely hope will attract attention, ex- 
cept from that small number of intellectual men 
who have turned their thoughts to the considera- 
tion of the foundations of human knowledge, a 
subject included along with many others of vital, 
although unappreciated importance to Society, 
under the repulsive appellation of metaphysics. 
By these few, however, he ventures to hope that 
the treatise will be found of some interest, if not 
from the absolute originality of its views (on which 
it is not for him to pronounce), yet from the no- 
velty and regularity of the order in which they are 
exhibited. 

With regard to the whole of the Essays, he 
may venture to offer them to the Public, and par- 
ticularly to the friends who have expressed so in- 
dulgent an opinion of his former volumes, as the 
result of long continued, if not always successful 
reflection. The greater part of the Volume indeed 
was written out for the press four or five years ago, 
since which it has had the benefit of repeated 
scrutiny and revision. He mentions these circum- 
stances, not to disarm criticism or to preclude ani- 



* This Essay is omitted in the present edition as already- 
stated in the new Preface, but the author did not conceive it 
needful to suppress this short notice of it. 



Vlll PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

madversion, but as establishing a title to a careful 
and candid examination from his readers, especially 
from those who may see reason to differ from the 
conclusions at which he has arrived. 

March, 1829. 



CONTENTS. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

Page. 

Chapter I. The Importance of Truth and of our Moral 

Sentiments in relation to the Pursuit of it 1 

Chapter H. The Duty of Entering upon Inquiry - 17 

Section 1. In what circumstances Inquiry is a Duty 18 

2. Objections and Prejudices inimical to the 

Duty of Inquiry - - - 37 

3. Continuation of the Subject - - 45 
Chapter m. Duties in the Process of Inquiry - - 59 

Section 1. Duties of the Inquirer in relation to the 

State of his own Mind - - ib. 

2. Duties, in relation to the Evidence - 76 

Chapter IV. The Issue of Inquiry - - - 87 

Section 1. The Issue of Inquiry, not a matter of 

Duty - - - - 89 

2. The Issue of Inquiry attended by its 

natural Consequences - - 100 

Chapter V. Duties towards others in relation to the 

Pursuit of Truth - - - 104 

Section 1. Moral Influence - - - 105 

2. Intellectual Assistance - - - 117 

3. Treatment of the Young - - 124 

4. Public Communications - - 130 

a 






X CONTENTS. 

Page. 

5. Reception of Public Communications - 136 

6. Duties of Non-Inquirers - - 148 

Chapter VI. Duties of G-overnments in relation to the 

Pursuit of Truth - - - 156 

Section 1. Duties of Governments considered as 

Inquirers themselves - - 157 

2. Duties of Governments towards their 

Subjects considered as Inquirers. En- 
couragement of Inquiry - - 159 

3. Continuation of the Subject. Methods 

of promoting the Attainment of Truth 163 

Subsection 1. Employing Public Instructors - 164 

2. Employing Force - - 180 

Chapter VII. Conclusion - - - - 190 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Part I. - - - - - - 195 

H. 210 

HI. - - - - - 229 



APPENDIX OF NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



ESSAY 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, 



IN REFERENCE CHIEFLY TO 



THE DUTIES CONNECTED WITH IT. 



/ 



ESSAY 



ON 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, 



IN REFERENCE CHIEFLY TO 



THE DUTIES CONNECTED WITH IT. 



CHAPTER I. 



IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH, AND OF OUR MORAL SENTI- 
MENTS IN RELATION TO THE PURSUIT OF IT. 

Truth, by which term is implied accuracy of know- 
ledge and of inference, is necessarily conducive to 
the happiness of the human race. This is an as- 
sertion scarcely requiring in the present day to be 
either enforced or illustrated. That mankind are 
deeply concerned, not only in clearly understanding 
the properties of the material world, and of their 
own physical constitution, but in an accurate ac- 
quaintance with the operations of the human mind, 
the consequences of human actions, the results of 
social regulations, the effects of political institu- 
tions, the relations in which they themselves stand 

B 



2 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OP TRUTH. 

to other beings, and their real position in the uni- 
verse, is a proposition so undeniable, when clearly 
expressed, as barely to escape the character of a 
truism. 

The transcendant importance of this fulness and 
accuracy of knowledge is attested by the sad tale 
of error and suffering presented to the eye in every 
page of history. What possible problem can man- 
kind have to solve in their mutual intercourse but 
one? What is it, but to make themselves conjointly 
as happy, and, for that purpose, as noble-minded 
and virtuous as they can, during the short term of 
their mortal existence ? And how have they hitherto 
solved this problem? In what numerous ways 
have they not proved themselves totally blind to 
their real interests, perverted their capabilities, 
wasted their resources, exasperated the unavoid- 
able evils of their condition, and inflicted gra- 
tuitous wretchedness on each other and on them- 
selves ? It is clear that men can have no interest 
in suffering, no taste for misery, no preference for 
unhappiness in itself; and wherever they are found 
in a regular and systematic career after it, they 
must be labouring under an impression that they 
are in pursuit of a different object. It is error, 
therefore, it is ignorance, it is illusion, it is an in- 
capacity on their part to see the real consequences 
of actions, the real issues of events, that gives rise 
to all those evils which desolate the world, except 
such as can be traced to irresistible impulse or to 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 3 

the physical circumstances of man's nature and 
condition.* " Error is the universal cause of the 
misery of mankind/' are the first words of a dis- 
tinguished philosopher f , in his treatise on the 
Search after Truth ; and they are scarcely too un- 
measured. 

The various modes in which this consummation 
is effected meet us everywhere. In the rapid glance 
we are now taking we can hardly pause for parti- 
cular illustrations ; but perhaps a few instances may 
indicate the nature of the evil in less compass, and 
with far greater suggestive power, than any general 
description. We are told by a high authority that 
amongst the superstitions of the Shetlanders, one 
is, or was, that he who saves a drowning man will 
receive at his hands some deep wrong or injury J, — 
a prejudice manifestly fatal to one of the noblest and 
most universal impulses of the human heart, and 
inevitably leading to acts of cowardly selfishness 
and cruelty. 

A still more deadly prepossession exists among 
the Bechuanas in South Africa and all the Caffer 
tribes. They have no idea of the possibility of 
death except from hunger, or violence, or witch- 



* For a more extended discussion of the utility of truth and 
the mischievousness of error, the author would beg to refer to a 
former work of his, viz. " Essays on the Formation and Pub- 
lication of Opinions." 

■f Malebranche. 

J Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, vol. iii. p. 155. 

B 2 



4 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

craft. If a man die, even at the extreme age of 
ninety, without any appearance of perishing from 
hunger or violence, his death is imputed to sorcery ; 
and blood is required to expiate or avenge it. 
" This circumstance," says the narrator, " gives rise 
to indescribable scenes of slaughter and misery."* It 
is reported by travellers that the superstition of the 
evil-eye prevails to a great extent in the present day, 
even amongst the highest classes, in Naples, where 
it occasions perpetual discord, insults, revenge, and 
even murder, f 

These instances are undoubtedly extreme cases, 
and, being alien from our own prejudices and habits, 
strike us all as palpable proofs of the connection 
between error and suffering ; but if we look around 
us in our own community we shall find the con- 
nection as strongly illustrated by circumstances 
in which familiarity alone has prevented us from 
observing it. 

The prevalence of misery, as the consequence of 
error and ignorance, proclaims the paramount im- 
portance of accurate knowledge. To discover truth 
is in reality to do good on a grand scale. The de- 
tection of an error, the dissipation of a doubt, the 
extirpation of a prejudice, the establishment of a 
fact, the deduction of a new inference, the cleve- 



* Researches in South Africa, by Rev. John Philip, D.D., 
vol.ii. p. 120. 

"f See, among other testimonies, that of Sir David Wilkie, in 
the Memoirs of his Life by A. Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 260. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 5 

lopment of a latent principle, may diffuse its bene- 
ficial consequences over every region of the world, 
and may be the means of lessening the misery or 
increasing the happiness of myriads of unborn ge- 
nerations.* The great interests of the human race, 
then, demand that the way of discovery should be 
open, that there should be no obstructions to in- 
quiry, that every possible facility and encourage- 
ment should be afforded to efforts addressed to the 
detection of error and to the attainment of truth, — 
nay, that every human being, as far as he is capable, 
should actively assist in the pursuit ; and yet one 
of the greatest discouragements to such efforts at 
present existing amongst mankind is the state of 
their own moral sentiments. Although he who has 
achieved the discovery of a truth in a matter of 
importance, or rescued an admitted truth from in- 
significance and neglect f, may justly indulge the re- 
flection that he has conferred a benefit on his fellow 
men, to which even time itself can prescribe no 
limits, he will do well to prepare for the odium and 
persecution with which the benefit will be resisted, 

* " Kevolutions of ages," says Milton, " do not oft recover 
the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations 
fare the worse." — Areopagitica. 

■f " In philosophy, equally as in poetry, genius produces the 
strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues the stalest and 
most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very 
circumstance of their universal admission." — Coleridge 's Friend, 
vol.i. p. 184. 

B 3 



6 ESS&Y ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 

and console himself with a prospective reliance on 
the gratitude and sympathy of a future age. 

It is impossible to deny the fact, that in some of 
the most important departments of knowledge the 
bulk of mankind regard novelties of doctrine — a 
description under which all detections of error and 
acquisitions of truth must come — as acts of moral 
turpitude or reprehensible arrogance, which they 
are ready to resent on the head of the promul- 
gator. 

A state of things in which the real interests and 
the moral sentiments of the human race are thus 
placed in strong opposition cannot fail to be fruitful 
of evil; and whoever should be fortunate enough to 
hasten its termination would perform no slight 
service to his species. On this point the past his- 
tory of the world, although it affords little ground 
for vehement exultation, teaches no lesson of de- 
spair. In the progress of society men's moral sen- 
timents inevitably change, both from those altera- 
tions in circumstances which enhance or depress 
the value of certain qualities of conduct, and from 
that acuter insight or correcter appreciation of the 
tendencies of action which accompanies an advance 
of civilisation. From one or other of these causes, 
modes of conduct formerly regarded as of trivial 
moment grow into importance, qualities at one 
time extolled sink into dubious virtues, or even 
positive vices, acts once shunned are zealously 
performed and warmly approved, new duties are 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 7 

evolved from the novel situations in which men are 
placed, and the code of morality is amplified with 
rules which would have been unintelligible or un- 
dervalued at a previous period, because the circum- 
stances to which they are applicable either had not 
then arisen or were wholly unregarded. Such 
changes may be seen by comparing either past 
times with present or savage with civilised com- 
munities. The dexterous horse-stealer, an igno- 
minious felon in England, is the consummate hero 
of the Crow Indians.* How large the stride in 
moral sentiment from the blind and selfish super- 
stition of the Shetlander, who runs away from the 
drowning seaman, to the enlightened benevolence 
which plants the life-boat on the sea-beach to suc- 
cour the stranded ship, and stimulates such men as 
the noble-minded Pellew to plunge into the very 
midst of peril in order to rescue their fellow-crea- 
tures from destruction ! f 

In reference to that class of actions which are 
connected with the pursuit of truth, both these 
causes of change in moral sentiment have been in 
operation. 

* Astoria, by Washington Irving, vol. ii. p. 79. — " Horse- 
stealing is their glory and delight." 

f This is an allusion to the magnanimous conduct of the late 
Lord Exmouth, on repeated occasions, and more especially in 
the case of the Dutton. There is something so ennobling in 
even the mere reading of such instances, which cannot be too 
widely known, that I have quoted the account in the Appendix, 
Note A. 

B 4 



8 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

In the first place, circumstances have occurred 
which have greatly raised in importance the con- 
sequences of inquiry, and of course the consequences 
of the conduct exhibited in prosecuting it. So long 
as science and civilisation had no existence, as man- 
kind were solely occupied with providing for their 
physical wants, or were continually engaged in the 
rougher work of mutual depredation and hostility, 
the cultivation of knowledge as a separate sphere 
of exertion, and indeed any semblance of regular 
investigation even in practical concerns, would be 
almost unknown, and consequently the virtues and 
vices connected with the pursuit of truth would not 
be called forth. Gradually, however, as civilisation 
advanced, as the interests of society growing more 
complicated required more careful discrimination, 
as wealth and the exemption from occupation ac- 
companying wealth became diffused, and curiosity 
was at leisure to speculate on the nature and destiny 
of man and other beings, to investigate surrounding 
objects, and to scrutinise passing events, it became 
manifest that the results of this mental activity 
would have important bearings on the fortunes of 
mankind. "What we term inquiry must always have 
place and possess importance in a certain degree, in- 
asmuch as it is mixed up with ordinary conduct ; 
but it is not so immediately apparent that, when 
pushed beyond the point of direct applicability, it 
has an extensive influence on human affairs. 

The speculations of thoughtful men might na- 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. d 

turally be regarded for a while as vain dreams or 
visionary theories, having little connection with the 
hard and pressing realities of life ; but they were 
found in process of time to penetrate everywhere, 
to permeate morals, manners, education, govern- 
ment, religion : and when investigation was suc- 
cessfully turned into the paths of physical science, 
the relation of systematic knowledge to human wel- 
fare was brought home to mankind in its most 
irresistible form. 

The happiness of the world has thus proved itself 
to be in various ways deeply implicated in the 
establishment of truth and the rectification of error 
even in subjects apparently remote from ordinary 
life ; and in consequence the conduct both of com- 
munities and individuals in every thing relating to 
inquiry has risen to an importance of which earlier 
ages never dreamed, and has become more ex- 
tensively the object of our moral sentiments. 

In the second place, concurrently with this change 
produced by the growing importance of the pursuit 
of truth, and of all conduct connected with it, the 
moral sentiments of mankind on the subject have 
also undergone progressive alteration from a more 
and more accurate appreciation of the tendencies of 
human actions, and a nicer discrimination of com- 
plicated moral phenomena. On this point, never- 
theless, it must be acknowledged that we have 
greater reason to look forward with hope than 



10 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

around us with complacency, or backward with 
exultation. 

In a matter so greatly enhanced in importance 
it was hardly to be expected that the good and evil 
qualities of conduct should be all at once appreciated 
with distinctness and precision ; and, accordingly, a 
very cursory examination is sufficient to show that 
mankind have hitherto lamentably erred, and still 
continue to err, in apportioning their approbation 
and disapprobation to the qualities displayed in 
reference to the prosecution of inquiry. Their 
moral sentiments have been roused indeed, but 
have at the same time been grossly misdirected. 
They have too frequently bestowed their smiles on 
conduct destitute of merit or even fundamentally 
vicious, and poured their indignation on acts most 
truly deserving their admiration and applause. Nor 
as to this misdirection of their feelings can the 
major part of the human race, even in what are 
termed by courtesy civilised communities, be truly 
said to have radically improved. Such mistakes as 
these are by no means easily rectified. The mo- 
rality of the subject, besides having been hitherto 
neglected and still remaining beset with prejudices, 
involves some nice distinctions, which cannot fail to 
be generally overlooked or confounded till they have 
been clearly exhibited and rendered plain and fa- 
miliar by repeated expositions. 

We must expect that here, as well as in other 
matters, the moral sentiments of mankind will prove 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 11 

tenacious of their accustomed course — reluctant to 
take a new direction. When men have once been 
habituated to look upon any quality or any system 
of action with approbation or the reverse they can 
scarcely divest themselves of the feeling, even though 
they discover the object no longer to deserve it ; 
and they are slow in bestowing the same sentiment 
on conduct by which it has not been familiarly ex- 
cited. Thus (to take an obvious illustration) the 
barbarian glare anciently flung over warlike qua- 
lities and military achievements still continues to 
dazzle the world into an admiration of actions 
manifestly destructive to human happiness. On 
this subject mankind have yet attained to no sound 
feeling ; their moral sentiments lag behind existing 
knowledge and established conclusions : and it will 
require the reiterated efforts of moralists and phi- 
losophers to work into their minds the only senti- 
ments to be entertained by rational beings towards 
the vulgar heroes and pageants of history. 

The same process of distinctly pointing out and 
repeatedly exhibiting the clear tendencies of action, 
is required to rectify the moral feelings of the world 
in all that regards the pursuit of truth; and we 
may venture to hope it will be applied with even- 
tual, although not immediate success. Tardy 
as mankind evince themselves in all changes of 
moral sentiment, they cannot permanently continue 
to bestow their approbation on qualities clearly 
proved to be pernicious, nor withhold it from 



12 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 

actions shown to be undeniably calculated for their 
welfare. 

A retrospect of the three last centuries alone 
leads us to anticipate that any improvement in the 
discrimination of good and evil in the various paths 
of human life must eventually find its way from 
the meditative few to the less reflecting many. 
Amongst these few, in the present day, the funda- 
mental principles, without which a code of morality 
in reference to the pursuit of truth cannot exist, 
are universally held. Philosophers unite in re- 
garding truth as inseparably allied with human 
happiness, and error as essentially hostile to it. It 
was otherwise with the sages of antiquity, amongst 
whom there was a prevalent dissociation of the 
utility from the truth of a doctrine. It was sup- 
posed that a dogma might be advantageous and 
even necessary to society, to morality, and to po- 
litical institutions, although it were false, and that 
it ought in this case to be strenuously supported 
and shielded from scrutiny even by those who were 
aware of its character. With such a notion there 
could not co- exist any conscious obligation, or any 
inducement but sheer curiosity, to enter upon the 
search after truth, and faithfully pursue it. On the 
contrary, it unavoidably led to the employment of 
fallacious arguments, hollow pretexts, disingenuous 
connivance, and violent oppression, in order to main- 
tain the authority of established doctrines. It could 
not fail to be fruitful in falsehood, hypocrisy, fraud, 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 13 

and despotic intolerance.* The same policy of a 
double doctrine was inculcated by Machiavel, and 
was, indeed, long acted upon in Europe prior to 
the reformation ; it has been well characterised by 
Mr. Stewart as the policy of " enlightening the few 
and hoodwinking the many." 

If similar views are yet occasionally entertained 
amongst the ignorant or half informed, they are 
seldom avowed. Even the hardly less revolting, 
but certainly less consistent, principle of more re- 
cent times, and maintained even by many of the 
early teachers of the Christian Church f, that a true 
doctrine may be rightly supported by false repre- 
sentations, and by what are called pious frauds, is 
discarded professedly, if not always really, by every 
party, every sect, and every individual with the 
slightest pretensions to a name in philosophy or 
literature, or even to a reputable standing in so- 
ciety. " Nothing," it has been well remarked, " can 
be more irrational in the pretended children of 
light than to enlist themselves under the banners 



* " It seems," says Dr.Whately, in an instructive dissertation 
on this subject, " to have been the settled conviction of most of 
those who had the sincerest desire of attaining truth themselves, 
that to the mass of mankind truth was in many points inex- 
pedient, and unfit to be communicated ; that, however desirable 
it might be for the leading personages in the world to be in- 
structed in the true nature of things, there were many popular 
delusions which were essential to the well-being of society." — 
Essays on the Writings of St. Paul, p. 3. 

j - Ibid. Also Middleton's Free Inquiry, passim. 



14 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

of Truth, and yet rest their hopes on an alliance 
with Delusion."* 

There is, happily, a growing disposition in the 
world, amongst the intelligent part of it at least, 
to prize truth of doctrine and veracity of state- 
ment; to look with disdain on all artifice, disin- 
genuity, and disguise, both in speculation and 
practice ; to regard the business of fife no longer as 
an affair which demands unremitted intrigue and 
perpetual deceit ; to consider the great interests of 
humanity as not requiring to be supported by igno- 
rance, hypocrisy, and superstition ; to believe that 
the suppression and concealment of facts and argu- 
ments can be of no service except to the few at the 
expense of the many; and that it is for the benefit of 
mankind, as well as essential to their progress in all 
which is virtuous and high-minded, that every im- 
portant question should be freely and boldly ex- 
amined, f This state of feeling, on the part of men 
of cultivated minds, seems highly favourable to an 
impartial discussion of the conduct which we ought 
to observe, or, in other words, the moral sentiments 



* Coleridge's Friend, vol. i. p. 53. 

f " From the whole deduction which has now been made," 
says an able writer, " it appears that superstition is useless ; 
that truth and reason are alone to be depended on in giving a 
regular and safe determination to human actions ; and that the 
idea of managing mankind by means of prejudices and by arts 
of deception is false philosophy, as unwise as it is immoral." — 
Dr. Haedy on the Progress of the Christian Religion, quoted in 
Mill's translation of Villers on the Reformation, p. 58. 



ESSAY ON TPIE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 15 

we ought to cherish, in relation to the pursuit of 
truth ; and even if the present endeavour to trace 
the duties connected with it shall fail of yielding 
that entire satisfaction which it is seldom the destiny 
of any thing human to give, it may animate the 
conscientious inquirer, and serve as a groundwork 
for more successful efforts. 

Little has yet been effected in this part of ethical 
philosophy; at all events, the subject has never, 
as far as the author knows, been systematically 
treated in the point of view here described : it is a 
department of moral exposition yet to be created. 
Locke, indeed, in his Conduct of the Understanding, 
and in his Letters on Toleration, has thrown out 
excellent remarks on some of the topics which it 
embraces ; and these treatises, which cannot be too 
warmly recommended, breathe an admirable spirit 
of right feeling and sound judgment in relation to 
the pursuit of truth.* 

Malebranche, too, in his celebrated work, "De la 
Kecherche de la Verite," abounds with instructive 
observations, encumbered nevertheless with anti- 

* Since the first edition of the present Essay was published 
many works have appeared in which correct and ennobling 
sentiments concerning the morality of investigation are inci- 
dentally expressed, some of which the author has had the satis- 
faction of tracing, or fancying he traced, to the influence of his 
own inadequate exposition of the subject. The Essays and 
Discourses of the late Dr. Channing may be particularly cited, 
as abounding in fervent and forcible lessons on this great theme. 
Occasional use of them is made in the following pages. 



16 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

quated matter and exploded doctrines, through 
which few in the present day will venture to toil. 

Neither of these distinguished writers, however, 
looked at the subject in the particular light in 
which it is the object of the following pages to 
place it ; and even if they had, the lapse of a cen- 
tury and a half may be presumed to have brought 
us into a more favourable position for viewing it in 
its most important relations. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



CHAP. II. 

THE DUTY OF ENTERING UPON INQUIRY. 

To inquire is simply to endeavour to obtain a know- 
ledge of something we are ignorant of. Inquiries are 
therefore of all kinds, trivial and important, easy 
and difficult ; they may be directed to the properties 
of matter or of mind, to the concerns of individuals, 
or of communities, or of mankind at large, to what 
at present exists, or to what has formerly happened; 
they vary, from the casual question regarding events 
of the day, to the laborious researches of the his- 
torian, and to the long series of observations and 
experiments by which the .philosopher interrogates 
nature. 

What people usually have in their minds, how- 
ever, when speaking in general terms of the pursuit 
of truth and duty of inquiry, seems to be that sort 
of investigation which has no direct reference to 
ordinary exigencies, but goes beyond what the im- 
mediate necessities and unimportant occurrences of 
life require. Few would probably think it needful 
to discuss the advantages or the obligation of seeking 
to know whatever is directly requisite for guiding 
their individual conduct on common occasions. 

Systematic, or scientific, or speculative investiga- 
tion is generally implied when the interesting topics 



18 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

just mentioned are in question, and perhaps there is 
usually a further implication that the inquiry, 
whatever it may be, is one that concerns society or 
mankind. 

On coming, nevertheless, to consider the subject 
closely, it does not appear that any strict line can 
be drawn between the different kinds of investiga- 
tion referred to. They pass into each other by 
insensible degrees, are frequently intermingled, and 
sometimes interchange characters; nor even, if they 
could be clearly discriminated, would it be found 
that the moral obligation to enter upon any re- 
searches depends on such distinctions. It is the 
circumstances in which a man is placed that must 
determine (chiefly at least) how far it is incumbent 
on him to engage in any investigation. 

That there are duties to be performed in reference 
to this matter, no one will be hardy enough to deny. 
If truth is so important to mankind, as we have 
shown it to be, there can scarcely fail to be circum- 
stances which render it imperative on human beings 
to strive to attain it, or which in other words bring 
the pursuit of it under the cognizance of morality. 
The problem before us is to determine what those 
circumstances are. 

Section I. 

In what Circumstances Inquiry is a Duty. 

Although it may be universally admitted that 
there are cases in which it is incumbent on mankind 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 19 

to engage in the pursuit of truth, those cases may 
appear on a first view too various and complicated 
to be definitively classified. On further reflection, 
nevertheless, it will be found that the most impor- 
tant, if not the whole of them, may be comprehended 
in a few general propositions. 

The duty of inquiry will be generally acknow- 
ledged to be obligatory upon every one in propor- 
tion to his capacity and opportunities in the follow- 
ing circumstances : 

1. When any direct means are within his reach 
of obtaining additional or more accurate knowledge 
of the relation in which he stands, and the duty 
which he owes to God. 

2. When the extent and accuracy of his know- 
ledge on any subject must have an important and 
direct effect on his conduct in life, public or pri- 
vate, professional or unofficial, and consequently on 
the happiness of his fellow-creatures. 

3. When he takes upon himself the office of in- 
structing others; a case included, indeed, in the 
preceding, but of such peculiar distinction from any 
other, as to deserve a separate consideration. 

4. When he possesses opportunities and abilities 
for prosecuting historical, scientific, or philosophical 
investigations, so as to enlarge the bounds of human 
knowledge. 

These four cases appear to comprise all the great 
circumstances which can be considered by any class 
of moralists, as rendering it the duty of mankind to 

c 2 



20 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

enter upon any regular and express inquiry ; and 
they are all fruitful of important suggestions, 
deserving the deep consideration, not only of the 
moralist and philosopher, but of every human 
being. 

1. Let us advert, in the first place, to the duty 
of availing ourselves of any direct means within our 
reach to increase and correct our knowledge of the 
relation in which we stand, and the duty we owe 
to the Great Author of the universe. In this are 
obviously included both the study of his attributes 
as displayed in the works of nature, and an inves- 
tigation of the authenticity and import of any al- 
leged communication from him to human beings. 

If we admit that there are any moral relations at 
all between us and the Supreme Being, we cannot 
but conclude that our ideas of his attributes must 
be pleasing to him and beneficial to ourselves, in 
proportion as they are worthy of their object, or, in 
other words, in proportion as they are accurate; 
whence it evidently becomes a general duty to exalt 
our conceptions of the Deity, by making ourselves 
acquainted with the real constitution of nature, as 
well as by correcting and enlarging our views of 
moral and intellectual excellence. If it were not 
incumbent upon us on other accounts to neglect no 
accessible means of acquiring a knowledge of the 
universe around us, and of our own sensitive and 
rational nature, this consideration alone would render 
it obligatory to seize every opportunity of escaping 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 21 

from ignorance and error. The conceptions of an 
uninstructed, although a virtuous man, or of an in- 
dividual, however conversant with physical science, 
who has never investigated his own mental con- 
stitution and the true nature of morality, must 
inevitably be far less worthy of the Great Author 
of the universe than the human mind is capable of 
forming; and such unworthy conceptions cannot 
possibly be raised or rectified in the slightest degree 
by any other means than the removal of that igno- 
rance to which they owe their imperfections. 

The effect, too, of wrong ideas of God on man 
himself must not be overlooked : it is, in truth, 
a consideration of the highest moment. " The 
Deity," says an able writer, " is proposed as 
the object, not merely of our belief, but of our 
practical adoration and love — in the imitation, 
limited and imperfect as it must be, of His moral 
perfections. Hence the vital practical importance 
of the most unimpeachable conception of those at- 
tributes, and of removing any thing like a limitation 
on their infinite moral excellence."* 

The pernicious consequences of erroneous and 
degrading conceptions of the Deity on the moral 
conduct of mankind, have seldom been sufficiently 
considered. To every man, the ideas which he 
forms of God must constitute a model to which he 
will naturally tend to conform himself, and accord- 

* The Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, by the Rev. 
Baden Powell, p. 212. 

c 3 



22 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

ing to which he will consider himself obliged in 
many cases to shape his own actions. If, therefore, 
he represents in his own imagination this Almighty 
Being as of an arbitrary, malevolent, selfish, and 
revengeful character (which are too often the actual 
notions lurking in the minds of the unenlightened, 
while the attributes of good and just and merciful 
are on their lips), he will insensibly and without 
any compunction become cruel, capricious, and 
tyrannical in his own social sphere. Or, perhaps, 
in many cases, it would be more correct to say that 
he would remain so. For barbarous and ignorant 
man first forms his notions of the Deity from his 
own low standard of what an All-powerful Being 
would do (beyond which, in fact, it is impossible 
for him to go) ; and then having consecrated his 
crude ideas by fixing upon them the imaginary 
stamp of divinity, he fears to depart from them, 
and it is with difficulty that he advances to more 
accurate and enlightened views of moral excellence 
than are warranted by the model of his own 
creation. 

The slow progress of the race in true morality is 
to be ascribed in a great measure to these con- 
secrated crudities of former ages. The ideas of 
mankind, naturally progressive on this as on all 
other subjects, are continually called back to the 
venerated model while they have an irresistible ten- 
dency to depart from it. To borrow an expressive 
phrase from a modern writer, "they are tethered 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 23 

to the stump of old superstitions." Thus the 
morality of a nation may long remain rude, vacil- 
lating, and inconsistent amidst the wonders of me- 
chanical art, the achievements of physical science, 
and the refinements of taste. 

Looking then both at the relation in which man- 
kind stand to God, and at their own social claims 
and personal interests, it is unquestionably a general 
duty on their part, according to their means and 
opportunities, to enlarge and purify their concep- 
tions of the Great Author of Nature, by making 
themselves acquainted, as accurately and extensively 
as possible, with his works, and investigating the 
truths of morality. To observe, to inquire, to ex- 
amine, to reason, to meditate, — these are the only 
means which they can employ to elevate their minds 
on this great subject — the noblest homage which 
they can render at the throne of the universe. 

" Much earnest, patient, laborious thought," says 
an eminent writer, " is required to see this Infinite 
Being as he is, to rise above the low gross notions 
of the Divinity, which rush in upon us from our 
passions, from our selfish partialities, and from the 
low-minded world around us." " Every man's 
elevation," observes the same writer, "is to be 
measured first, and chiefly by his conception of this 
Great Being."* 



* Lecture on the Elevation of the Labouring Classes, by Dr. 
Channing. 

c 4 



24 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OE TRUTH. 

Not less imperative reasons exist why we should 
diligently apply ourselves to the examination of the 
authenticity and import of any alleged commu- 
nication from God to mankind, that wears the least 
semblance of credibility. To neglect inquiry under 
these circumstances, would not only be a breach of 
the manifest duty arising out of the relation of a 
creature to his Creator, but it would be to plunge 
ourselves into those evils which an unacquaintance 
with accessible knowledge, and, much more, any 
positive errors on so momentous a subject, would 
be sure to bring, as well as to sacrifice all those 
benefits which would necessarily flow from the pos- 
session of the truth. The disastrous consequences 
which have arisen to mankind from mistakes on 
this great question, are alone sufficient to teach us 
the imperative obligation of entering upon the in- 
quiry — an obligation under which every human 
being lies according to his means and opportunities, 
not (let it be borne in mind) to his fellow- creatures, 
but to that Omniscient Being who is alone com- 
petent to judge how far it has in any instance been 
fulfilled. 

Surely, if there is any one course of conduct 
more than another which common sense and con- 
science unite in pointing out as imperative upon 
us, it is to devote ourselves to an investigation of 
the genuineness and the meaning of a communica- 
tion, asserting itself with any shadow of plausibility 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 25 

to be a message from the great Author of Nature.* 
In what way such an investigation, in common with 
all others, ought to be prosecuted, will be shown in 
a subsequent part of this essay. 

2. It will be readily admitted that it is likewise 
imperative on every one to undergo the labour of 
inquiry according to his means and opportunities 
in regard to all subjects which have an important 
and direct bearing on his social conduct ; which, in 
other words, furnish grounds for determining what 
that conduct shall be. Not to inquire in these 
cases, would be to take steps involving the happiness 
of our fellow- creatures, as well as of ourselves, 
without knowing or doing all in our power to learn 
the consequences of those steps : it would be staking, 
in fact, the welfare of others and our own on the 
mere chance of being ignorantly in the right. How 
extensive and momentous this branch of duty is, 
will appear to any one who reflects that reputation, 
fortune, morals, health, life, are daily committed to 
the statesman, the judge, the lawyer, the physician, 
and the navigator, and must be placed in jeopardy, 
not only by their neglecting to investigate each par- 
ticular case as it arises, but by professional error or 



* For a more adequate exposition of this part of the subject, 
on which it would be here out of place to do more than briefly 
touch, the reader may consult " Letters of an Egyptian Kafir in 
search of a Religion," to which the present revised Essay must 
acknowledge considerable obligations ; and which will be quoted 
on several occasions in the sequel. 



26 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

ignorance, which proper inquiry would have removed. 
Nor is it a less powerful consideration that the 
destiny of a family, as well as of a community, is 
dependent on the due prosecution of inquiries con- 
nected with its welfare, and especially that the 
physical and moral being of a child may be irreme- 
diably depraved for want of knowledge accessible 
but neglected by the parent. 

But there is a more general duty than any of 
these, which comes under this head — the important 
duty too little adverted to, if not wholly overlooked, 
of investigating the accuracy of our moral senti- 
ments and the justness of our application of them. 
Obliged every day to mingle in the conflicting pur- 
suits and interests of mankind, where there is con- 
stant opportunity for the exercise of every virtue 
and vice incident to human nature, — called also to 
pronounce sentence upon others, to shape our be- 
haviour to them accordingly, and thus to affect 
their happiness by our words and deeds, it behoves 
us to make ourselves well acquainted with the real 
tendencies of human actions, to ascertain with the 
utmost accuracy what is really worthy of approval 
or censure, as well as to satisfy ourselves that the 
action which we praise or condemn comes under 
the class to which we refer it. 

It is painful to see how grossly this maxim is 
contravened — to witness the negligence of the 
greater part of mankind in regard to a just appre- 
ciation of social duties — to mark the arrogant spirit 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 27 

in which moral verdicts are flung about at random, 
when it is manifest that the self-constituted judges 
have never investigated the. grounds on which 
such verdicts are pronounced, never taken the 
trouble to inquire whether the actions which they 
applaud or stigmatise are really beneficial or in- 
jurious to the happiness of mankind, or even 
whether there is evidence that they have been 
actually committed. 

We shall have, hereafter, to bring into view the 
bitter consequences of such negligence of inquiry, 
and especially of such rash and ignorant judgments 
in relation to human conduct in the very subject of 
our present speculations, namely, the pursuit of 
truth. 

Meanwhile it is sufficiently evident from what 
has been said, how extensive must be the influence 
of the accurate or inaccurate direction of moral 
sentiment both on a man's own conduct, and on his 
application of the powerful instruments of appro- 
bation and censure to the conduct of his neigh- 
bours; and how strong, therefore, is the obligation 
resting upon every individual, in proportion to his 
opportunities, to acquire the knowledge necessary 
for the correct discrimination of moral good and 
evil. 

In reference to the general duty of entering upon 
the task of investigation, as here inculcated, a mo- 
dern writer makes the following judicious remarks. 

"It is much to be feared/ 7 he says, "that the 



28 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

opinions of men in general on subjects of the greatest 
importance, and on which it most depends whether 
their influence shall be beneficial or injurious to 
mankind, are formed without inquiry or consider- 
ation, and are the mere prejudices of education ; 
or the effects of caprice ; or adopted because they 
will promote their interest ; or because they are in 
fashion, and propagated by those who have a direct 
interest in deceiving the world. Yery few even 
think of examining into the truth of the opinions 
which they find to prevail in the more respectable 
classes of society ; but most men adopt them as 
sound maxims, and regulate by them their judg- 
ment and actions, even in cases in which they must 
necessarily incur a very heavy responsibility. Yet 
while they thus take no pains to avoid error, they 
are always ready, when it turns out that they are 
in the wrong, to plead their ignorance or error in 
excuse for their misconduct ; though it be manifest 
that neither ignorance nor error is a valid excuse, 
where it might have been prevented or remedied 
by such an attention to the subject, as its importance, 
honestly considered, would have appeared to re- 
quire, and by the use of the means which were in 
their power."* 

" The improvement of our judgment," says an- 
other writer, " and the increase of our knowledge, 



* Introduction to the Study of Moral Evidence, by the Rev. 
J. E. Gambler, 3d ed. p. 132. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 29 

on all subjects included within our sphere of action, 
are not merely advantages recommended by pru- 
dence, but absolute duties imposed on us by con- 
science."* 

Of the lamentable effects of neglecting almost 
all the duties specified under this head, a striking 
illustration is furnished by an incident which oc- 
curred within the memory of many now living. 
A young woman, Eliza Fenning, was capitally con- 
demned for the alleged crime of attempting to 
poison part of her master's family, on evidence of 
the most inconclusive character, and after a hasty 
and insufficient trial. Subsequently to her con- 
viction, fresh evidence in her favour calculated to 
make any wise and good man pause and review his 
conclusions, even on a less awful occasion, was 
tendered to the j udge ; the discrepancies in the 
testimony of the witnesses on the trial were pointed 
out by the poor girl herself, not only to that func- 
tionary, but to the Lord Chancellor and to the 
Secretary of State ; and other efforts were used to 
avert the terrible calamity of putting the innocent 
to death : but all without avail. She perished on 
the scaffold. 

Here the judge had, in the first place, mani- 
festly neglected the duty imperative on all judges, 
of making themselves acquainted with the obliga- 
tions imposed upon them by their office and with 

* Coleridge's Friend, vol. ii. p. 171. 



30 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

the principles of evidence, and was therefore pro- 
fessionally unfit for his situation ; he showed himself 
ignorant of the simple principle, that it was his 
duty to protect the accused from a capital con- 
viction, except on the most unquestionable proof; 
he seems not even to have attained to the concep- 
tion of what constitutes a fair trial. During the 
proceedings he was deaf to the repeated entreaties 
of the poor victim in his power that a particular 
witness should be examined ; and after this mockery 
of justice was over, he pertinaciously refused to 
hear further material evidence which the diligence 
of some benevolent individuals had collected and 
offered to his notice.* Thus his professional ig- 
norance, and his obstinacy in rejecting information, 
were the means of bringing to an ignominious end 
a young woman, innocent (as far as human sagacity 
can discover f) of the crime laid to her charge, and 
notwithstanding her lowly condition, of fine moral 
and intellectual qualities. Her youth, her inter- 
esting personal appearance, her reliance on her own 
innocence, and on the force of truth for an acquittal, 
the noble spirit with which she supported the un- 
expected verdict, and struggled in the dreary de- 



* Sir Samuel Romilly in speaking of this unhappy case, 
stigmatises the conduct of the recorder as savage. — Memoirs, 
vol. iii. p. 235. 

■f It has been stated in the public papers, that a death-bed 
confession by the actual perpretator of the crime has completely 
vindicated the innocence of this noble but unfortunate girl. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH 31 

solationof a convict's cell against the unjust sentence, 
and, finally, the feminine propriety and more than 
feminine firmness of her demeanour throughout the 
closing scene, altogether form a picture deeply 
affecting. The story of Eliza Fenning makes the 
heart bleed. It is not often that the consequences 
of neglecting the duty of inquiry, both special and 
general, are condensed into such intense evil, and 
can be so plainly exhibited. 

3. Many words will not be required to prove that 
he who takes upon himself the office of instructing 
others, should previously investigate the subjects 
he has to explain. Inquiry is the only means in 
his power of satisfying himself that he is dissemi- 
nating truth and not falsehood. Nothing can be 
conceived more absolutely imperative. No obli- 
gation can be stronger than that of a teacher to 
render himself competent to the function of teach- 
ing, so that he shall not delude or mislead his 
disciples. Instruction can have no legitimate ob- 
ject but to teach what is true; and it is a sort of 
practical contradiction to engage in the office without 
having bestowed the trouble of ascertaining what 
the truth is. To mention the schoolmaster, the 
clergyman, the lecturer, the public speaker, the 
author, the critic, is sufficient to show how nu- 
merous and influential are the classes bound by 
this obligation, and the important character of the 
duty resting upon them. The morality of this 
portion of the subject is so plain, that it would 



32 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

almost seem a waste of words to elucidate or enforce 
it, and yet, if we look into actual life, we shall dis- 
cover few symptoms of an adequate conception of 
the duty in question. 

Subjects requiring disciplined minds, years of 
study, careful weighing of evidence and nice dis- 
crimination, are taught with unhesitating confi- 
dence, and not seldom with dogmatical arrogance 
by men without any qualification for the office, and 
without even the pretext of a due course of inquiry, 
as if they laboured under an utter insensibility to 
the obligations incurred by assuming so important 
a function. It is, indeed, a lamentable proof of the 
low state of moral intelligence amongst us, that 
human beings should rashly engage without pre- 
paration in the office of instructing their fellow- 
creatures upon matters of the highest concern, and 
not only be perfectly unconscious that they are 
trespassing against any moral rule, but have an 
impression that they are performing a valuable 
service. 

It is needless to dwell on the perpetuation of 
ignorance and error, which must ensue from the 
neglect of full and sedulous inquiry on the part of 
a teacher into whatever subject he engages to ex- 
plain. If every one who takes upon himself this 
function would faithfully examine his own defi- 
ciencies, and exert himself to supply them, or abandon 
it to others more adequately qualified, it would be 
impossible that the enlightened views of the pre- 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 33 

eminent of the race should make their way in the 
world with so much difficulty as they do, and 
diffuse their benefits in so small a circle as that to 
which we see them confined. 

The duty of every one in the circumstances 
described under the three preceding heads, is not 
only to enter upon investigation, but to pursue his 
inquiries as far as his capacity and opportunities 
permit, till he has come to satisfactory conclusions, or 
feels thoroughly convinced that he has obtained all 
the light which investigation can supply. It is es- 
pecially incumbent on men of cultivated minds who 
understand the process of reasoning and the force 
of evidence, not to be contented with their opinion 
on any question of importance till they can trace 
its connection with indisputable facts or with 
self-evident principles. The same considerations 
which render it a duty to commence inquiry, render 
it a duty to persevere till this satisfactory end has 
been achieved. 

4. We are next to consider the duty of entering 
upon scientific or philosophical or other systematic 
investigation with the simple view of enlarging 
human knowledge, and when investigation is not 
incumbent upon us from the considerations already 
specified. 

A great majority of mankind struggling for ex- 
istence, and worn down with labour and anxiety, 
may obviously in this question be at once set aside : 
they are exonerated by their position from devoting 

D 



34 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

attention to the investigation of any problems but 
such as directly relate to their actual condition, or 
are forced upon their notice. Doomed to incessant 
toil or unremitting care, they are rather to be com- 
mended when they evince any eagerness for extra- 
neous knowledge, than blamed for indifference to 
every subject not immediately bearing on their 
moral and physical well-being. 

Upon those who are elevated above this constant 
attention to the exigencies of ordinary life, the 
duty of inquiry for the single purpose of adding 
to the stock of human knowledge presses with 
varying force according to their station and abili- 
ties. Perhaps we can attain to no more precise 
rule on the subject, than that every one who has 
powers and opportunities to extend the boundaries 
of knowledge by systematic research is under a 
proportionate moral obligation to do so. 

There is another consideration which still further 
abates the precision of the rule. It is obvious that 
no man, even the ablest and most accomplished, 
can be expected to pursue every inquiry which his 
powers may be calculated to solve, or his position 
may enable him to enter upon. 

We are in the present day surrounded on all 
sides by phenomena pressing on our curiosity. 
Nature, to the awakened minds of men of the 
nineteenth century, presents herself as a very dif- 
ferent object of investigation from what she appeared 
a few hundred years ago, and science and history 



ESSAY ON THE PUKSU1T OF TRUTH. 35 

offer their accumulated instruments and volumes 
to assist us in the interpretation of her laws. Facts 
and principles, problems for solution, and fields of 
inquiry have multiplied on our hands. A single 
mind is no longer capable of grasping all extant 
knowledge ; and the ablest of us must be content 
with comprehending a part, and casting a longing 
look at the rest. 

The inquiries of every human being are thus 
necessarily limited by the multiplicity of objects 
presenting themselves for investigation, Different 
individuals, from peculiar inclinations or capacities, 
will range over different parts of the field of know- 
ledge. Whether they devote their abilities to this 
or that subject must be frequently a matter of mere 
personal taste ; and it can be only under some 
peculiar circumstances that the direction of their 
scientific inquiries will be a matter of duty.* 

That such gifted individuals as have been de- 
scribed are nevertheless bound to enter upon some 
investigations or other for the extension of science, 
seems manifest. If we suppose a human being to 
be blessed with the combined opportunities, attain- 

*, " If it doth not appear," says a learned writer, "precisely 
into what kind of studies this respect to truth will carry a man 
preferably to all others, how far it will oblige him to continue 
his pursuit after knowledge, and when the discontinuance begins 
to be no offence against truth, he must consult his own oppor- 
tunities and genius, and judge for himself as well as he can " — 
Wollaston on the Religion of Nature, p. 24. 

D 2 



36 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

ments, and original genius of a Newton, we feel 
at once that the pursuit of truth is his appropriate 
career. In such a man indolence and inertness 
would be a crime. 

Here is an individual endowed with pre-eminent 
capacity, trained in all human learning, gifted with 
leisure, animated by companions engaged in similar 
pursuits, stimulated by novel ideas beaming on his 
intellectual vision, capable of opening to his fellow- 
creatures new views of nature and vistas of thought, 
and yet he refuses to bestow any labour in follow- 
ing out these happy glimpses and brilliant concep- 
tions ; he is content with the passive enjoyment 
of seeing them " come and depart/' without making 
any effort to follow out and perpetuate his dis- 
coveries for the good of mankind. He has great 
objects within his reach, yet refuses to stretch out 
his hand. 

No one requires to be told that such a being so 
acting would deserve the condemnation of the wise 
and the good, while he would be casting away some 
of the highest enjoyments of which human nature 
is capable. From such inertness, fortunately, the 
world is in a great measure secured by the irre- 
sistible propensity of genius to exert its powers. 
The issue is not left to the mere influence of a 
sense of duty, although the moral obligation does 
not the less exist, and if clearly apprehended, must 
constitute a valuable incitement in those moments 
when the ardour of enterprise is chilled by the cold 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 37 

reception which awaits discovery, or relaxes at the 
sight of the boundless field that remains to be 
explored. 

Section II. 

Objections and Prejudices inimical to the Duty of 
Inquiry. 

It is not easy to imagine how the plain statement 
of duty presented in the last section can be denied 
or controverted ; yet it frequently happens in ac- 
tual life, that from indolence, ignorance, misappre- 
hension, prejudice, or fearfulness, the business of 
inquiry, if not positively repudiated, is really 
evaded. 

One of the first expedients that naturally suggest 
themselves to stave off so troublesome a task, is to 
plead the undefined nature of the duty as rendering 
it impossible for any one to determine either for 
himself or for others, how far in any circumstances 
it is obligatory. 

In this plea there is doubtless some force. The 
circumstances described in the preceding section as 
imposing the duty of investigation, are various in 
their character and weight, and it is frequently too 
much to expect from the parties on whom it is in- 
cumbent, that they should be fully conscious of 
their own want of knowledge, and be able to form 
clear views of what they ought to do, or of the best 
manner of doing it. There are in fact two classes 

d 3 



38 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

of cases which may be readily distinguished. With 
one class there can be little difficulty. Men must 
be frequently well aware of their deficiency in such 
information as their position in the world demands ; 
and in those cases where the knowledge is essential 
to action, not only must their culpability in not 
having prosecuted the necessary investigations be 
clear to their own discernment, but it will often be 
unequivocally manifest to others. On the other 
hand, when we quit the sphere of action for that of 
speculation, when we turn for instance to such 
subjects as the character and proceedings of the 
Deity, the truth of historical records, or the cor- 
rectness of our moral sentiments, or to any branch 
of science which we may be capable of exploring, 
the task of satisfying ourselves as to what investi- 
gations it is requisite to undertake, is by no means 
so determinate. In such cases every individual 
must be necessarily left to his own conscience : the 
decision, whether he has acted up to the demands 
of the occasion does not belong to his fellow-crea- 
tures, nor can they in general be competent to pro- 
nounce sentence. The explanation of the duty 
insisted upon in the preceding section, has con- 
stantly implied that to enter upon inquiry can be 
considered as obligatory only in proportion to the 
means which are actually within reach, including 
the degree of intelligence possessed regarding the 
duty itself, and can be perfectly so only to such 
individuals as are fully able to comprehend the 
position in which they stand to God and their own 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 39 

species. How far any one approaches to this dis- 
tinct apprehension, and acts according to the light 
of his knowledge in availing himself of the means 
within his power, are evidently points not within 
the province of humanity to decide. All that can 
be done is to delineate the course which ought to 
be followed, the line of conduct which is right in 
itself, and which would be pursued by any one who 
clearly saw the obligation imposed by the circum- 
stances described, and was resolved conscientiously 
to discharge it. 

It may be quite practicable to point out a proper 
line of action in given circumstances, and at the 
same time exceedingly difficult to determine how 
far particular individuals come under those circum- 
stances, and are culpable for not observing the 
prescribed track. 

Nevertheless, it will still remain true (and the 
consideration is a most important one), that if we 
neglect or omit, whether culpably or innocently, to 
enter upon the proper investigation demanded by 
any combination of circumstances, we shall miss all 
the direct advantages of the right course, and incur 
the unhappy consequences of error ; we shall have 
no part in the conscious satisfaction, the clearness 
of view and solidity of principle, the worth of cha- 
racter, the power of beneficial action, the ability to 
avert or avoid evil arising from diligent and well 
directed inquiry. These are advantages not to be 
attained without making the efforts on which they 

d 4 



40 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

depend. No purity or uprightness of intention can 
secure us against the bad consequences of not having 
taken pains to possess ourselves of the truth. 

Besides this objection, there are other phantoms 
conjured up in the path of investigation by the 
prejudices of some and the fearfulness of others, 
which the aid of reason may be required to dissi- 
pate, as they are frequently made pretexts to justify 
inaction. 

These pretexts for declining the duty of inquiry 
are generally masked under vague or metaphorical 
phrases: — "Inquiry implies the weighing of evi- 
dence, and might lead to doubt and perplexity; 7 ' 
" to search into a subject might shake the settled con- 
victions of the understanding;" " to examine op- 
posite arguments and contradictory opinions might 
contaminate the mind with false views." 

Every one who alleges such pretexts as these for 
declining inquiry, must obviously begin by as- 
suming that his own opinions are unerringly in the 
right. Nothing could justify any man for declining 
the investigation of a subject which it is his duty 
to teach, or on which his opinions necessarily deter- 
mine his religious or his social conduct, but the pos- 
session of an understanding free from liability to 
error. Not gifted with infallibility, in what way ex- 
cept by diligent inquiry can he obtain any assurance 
that he is not in the one case disseminating erroneous 
opinions, or in the other pursuing a course of in- 
jurious action ? If he holds any opinion, he must 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 41 

have acquired it, either by examination, or by in- 
stillation, rote, or some process which he cannot 
recollect. On the supposition that he has acquired 
it by proper examination, the duty on which we are 
now insisting has been discharged, and the matter 
is at an end. If he has acquired it in the other 
manner, if it is fast fixed in his understanding 
without any consciousness on his own part how it 
came there, the mere plea that his mind might be- 
come unsettled, can be no argument against the 
duty of investigation. For any thing he can allege 
to the contrary, his present opinions are wrong ; 
and in that case the disturbance of his blind con- 
viction, instead of being an evil, is an essential step 
towards arriving at the truth. 

There is no foreseeing how far the subtlety of in- 
terest and indolence may go ; and it may be possibly 
assigned as a further reason for his declining in- 
quiry, that he may come to some fallacy which he 
cannot surmount, although convinced of its cha- 
racter. If he is convinced of its character, he 
must either have grounds for that conviction or 
not. If he has grounds, let him examine them, 
draw them out, try if they are valid, and then the 
fallacy will stand exposed. If he has no grounds 
for suspecting a fallacy, what an irrational con- 
clusion he confesses himself to have arrived at ! 
But perhaps he will reply — he may be unable to 
solve the difficulty, his mind may become per- 
plexed, and the issue may prove, after all, that it 



42 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

would have been much better had he remained in 
his former strong, though unenlightened conviction. 
Why better ? If he is in perplexity, let him read, 
think, consult the learned and the wise, and in the 
result he will probably reach a definite opinion on 
one side or the other. But if he should still remain 
in doubt, where is the harm, or rather why is it not 
to be considered a good ? The subject is evidently 
one which admits strong probabilities on opposite 
sides. Doubt, therefore, is the proper sentiment 
for the occasion : it is the result of the best exercise 
of the faculties ; and either positively to believe, or 
positively to disbelieve, would imply an erroneous 
appreciation of evidence. 

In the minds of some people, a strong prejudice 
appears to exist against that state of the under- 
standing which is termed doubt. A little reflection, 
however, will convince any one, that on certain 
subjects doubt is as appropriate a state of mind as 
belief, or disbelief on others. There are doctrines, 
propositions, facts, supported and opposed by every 
degree of evidence, and many amongst them by 
that degree of evidence of which the proper effect 
is to leave the mind in an equipoise between two 
conclusions. In these cases, either to believe or 
disbelieve would imply that the understanding was 
improperly affected. Doubt is the appropriate 
result, which there can be no reason to shrink from 
or lament.* 

* " One who has an aversion to doubt, and is anxious to 



ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 43 

But it is further urged, that inquiry might con- 
taminate the mind with false views ; and therefore 
it is wise and laudable to abstain from it. 

We can understand what is meant by con- 
taminating a man's habits, or disposition, or even 
imagination. If a man read impure books, or 
works of extravagant fiction and false taste, his 
imagination will inevitably be coloured by the ideas 
presented, and the conceptions which subsequently 
rise up in his mind will partake of the impurity 
and extravagance thus made familiar to it. But 
there is no analogy on this point between the un- 
derstanding and the imagination. There is conta- 
mination, there is evil, in preposterous and obscene 
images crowding before the intellectual vision, 
notwithstanding a full and distinct perception of 
their character; but there is no contamination, 
no evil in a thousand false arguments coming be- 
fore the mind, if their quality is clearly discerned. 
The only possible evil in this case is mistaking 
false for true ; but the man who shrinks from in- 
vestigation, lest he should mistake false for true, 
can have no reason for supposing himself free from 



make up his mind and to come to some conclusion on every 
question that is discussed, must be content to rest many of his 
opinions on very slight grounds, since no one individual is 
competent to investigate fully all disputable points. Such a 
one, therefore, is no lover of truth ; nor is in the right way to 
attain it on any point." — Aechbishop Whately on the Writings 
of St. Paul, p. 25. 



44 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TEUTH. 

that delusion in his actual opinions. To maintain 
that he would be more likely to escape from error 
without investigation than with it, is a species of 
absurdity which requires no exposure.* 

On no plea, therefore, can investigation, in the 
circumstances already stated, be declined. That 
it should unsettle a man's established convictions, 
or that it should lead to ultimate doubt, may be a 
good : the one is the necessary preliminary to pass- 
ing from error to truth ; the other, if ultimately 
produced, is most likely to be the proper state of 
his intellect in relation to the particular subject 
examined. That inquiry should contaminate his 
mind is also a vain allegation. The only meaning 
which can be attached to the phrase, implies a mis- 
conception of falsehood for truth — a delusion which 
inquiry is not only the direct means of prevent- 
ing, but of dissipating if he is already involved 
in it. 

Whoever fears to examine the foundation of his 
opinions, and enter on the consideration of any 
train of counter-argument, may rest assured, that 
he has some latent apprehension of their unsound- 
ness and incapacity of standing investigation. And 
as a fear of this sort, while it is totally discordant 
with that spirit of candour and fairness which every 
one must acknowledge to be the proper disposition 
for the attainment of truth, is at variance with the 

* The way not to be led into error (remarks Hooker) is to 
be thoroughly instructed. — Ecclesiastical Polity, book iii. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 45 

positive duty of the occasion, no man should suffer 
it to prevent him from boldly engaging in the re- 
quisite inquiry. A great deal of invective has been 
levelled at free-thinking. Taking the expression 
literally as applying to the process of thought, the 
only distinction worth attending to on this point 
is that between accurate and inaccurate, true and 
false. Thinking can never be too free, provided it 
is just. But construing the phrase as synonymous 
with free inquiry, it follows from the clearest prin- 
ciples of morality, that the freest inquiry not only 
is an innocent act, but under certain circumstances 
becomes an imperative duty. 



Section III. 
Continuation of the Subject. 

Besides the objections to inquiry examined in 
the last section, there are some other prejudices of 
a similar character, which, as long as they prevail, 
must form serious impediments to the attainment 
of truth. 

One of these is a fear that we may search too far, 
and become chargeable with presumption in prying 
into things we ought not to know: another pre- 
judice is, that we may contract guilt should we 
arrive at erroneous conclusions, or conclusions at 
variance with such as are established ; and another, 
that it is a sort of praiseworthy humility to ac- 



46 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

quiesce in received opinions, on the authority of 
others, and refrain from thinking for ourselves. 

A brief space will not be ill bestowed in setting 
these prejudices in their true light. 

As to the first, a few words will suffice to prove 
that nothing can be more irrational and unfounded. 
It has been shown in another place* that truth is 
conducive to human happiness ; the attainment of 
it, one of the highest objects of human enterprise ; 
and the free exercise of our faculties on all subjects, 
the means of securing this invaluable blessing, f 
If this is a correct representation, the prosecution 
of inquiry in any possible direction is a process 
from which there is every thing to hope and nothing 
to fear, and to which there are no limits but such 
as the nature of our own faculties prescribes. 

It is not easy to conceive with exactness what 
can possibly be apprehended from investigation; 
what is the precise danger or difficulty it is ex- 
pected to involve us in ; what is implied in the fear 
that we may search too far ; what are those things 
which it may be presumptuous to ascertain. Such 
persons as have imagined that inquiry might con- 
duct us to forbidden truths in the fields of know- 

* Essay on the Publication of Opinions, and also the Intro- 
ductory Chapter to the present Essay. 

f " When I see," said Sir George Savile, in a speech seventy 
years ago, " when I see a rivulet flow to the top of a high rock, 
and requiring a strong engine to force it back again, then shall 
I think that freedom of inquiry will be prejudicial to truth." 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 47 

ledge, seem to have had no determinate notions as 
to the sort of discoveries we should make, but have 
been influenced by some loose analogy with human 
affairs. 

As there are secret transactions in society, 
amongst bodies or individuals, which we should be 
culpable in prying into ; sealed documents cir- 
culating in the world, sacred to those whose names 
they bear, and not to be scrutinised with honour 
by any of the intermediate agents through whose 
hands they pass ; records of private affairs, kept 
solely for the use of the parties concerned in them, 
and which we are not to come upon by stealth, and 
rifle of their information : and as to infringe the 
privacy of these matters would be stigmatised as 
indelicate, meddling, presumptuous, so it seems to 
be supposed that there are closed documents in 
nature into which we are forbidden to look, private 
processes going on into which we have no right to 
intrude, truths existing which are not to be pro- 
faned by our scrutiny, and to attempt to make our- 
selves acquainted with these is unjustifiable audacity 
and presumption. If this prejudice does not often 
assume the definite form here ascribed to it, it may 
frequently be found exerting an influence without 
a distinct consciousness in the mind over which it 
prevails.* 

* When the writer penned this passage some twenty years 
ago, he little thought of the future re-appearance of the prejudice 
amongst men of education, even in a more palpable form. A 



48 ESSi\Y ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

A more striking instance of a completely false 
analogy could not be adduced. There is not a 
single point of resemblance throughout the whole 
field of knowledge to these little secrets, the off- 
spring of human weakness, or the indispensable 
resources of human imperfection. There is no 



clergyman has in a recent publication denounced geological 
investigations as not " subjects of lawful inquiry" " shrouded 
from us by a higher power" to be reckoned " a dark art, 
dangerous and disreputable." This statement (for 1 have not 
seen the book) is given on the authority of Dr. Pye Smith in 
his able and valuable work, " On the Relation between the Holy 
Scriptures and some Parts of Geological Science," p. 193. The 
cry of danger, it appears, is not confined to interrogating nature, 
but extends even to researches into historical documents. 
" Scarcely," says Dr. Wiseman, speaking of the discovery of 
the key to the hieroglyphical proper names, " scarcely was it 
announced to Europe, when timid minds took the alarm and 
reprobated it as tending to lead men to dangerous investiga- 
tions." — Lectures on the Connection between Science and Re- 
vealed Religion, vol. ii. p. 76. How strikingly contrasted with 
the bigotry here noticed is the noble declaration of the present 
Archbishop of Dublin : — " As we must not dare to withhold or 
disguise revealed religious truth, so we must dread the progress 
of no other truth. We must not imitate the bigotted Papists 
who imprisoned Galileo ; and step forward, Bible in hand (like 
the profane Israelites carrying the ark of God into the field of 
battle), to check the inquiries of the geologist, the astronomer, 
or the political economist, from an apprehension that the cause 
of religion can be endangered by them. Any theory, on what- 
ever subject that is really sound, can never be inimical to a 
religion founded on truth; and any that is unsound may be 
refuted by arguments drawn from observation and experiment, 
without calling in the aid of revelation." — Essays on St. Paul, 
p. 36. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 49 

secret in the natural or the moral world, sacred 
from the investigation of man. Here there can be 
no presumption, no undue boldness, no counterpart 
at all to the audaciousness of one person intruding 
upon the privacy of another. All that man has to 
guard against, and that simply for his own sake, is 
error ; his vigilance is required only to insure that 
his facts are properly ascertained, and his inferences 
correctly deduced. The presumption he has to re- 
press, is not any presumption in relation to other 
beings in possession of secrets, which he is trying 
clandestinely to wrest from them, but merely the 
presumption of drawing positive and ample con- 
clusions from doubtful and slender premises, of sup- 
posing that he has discovered what he has not, that 
he has succeeded where he has only failed, that he 
has done what still remains to be accomplished ; in 
a word, the presumption of overrating his own 
achievements. Here indeed a man may err in self- 
confidence, but an evil cannot obviously arise from 
searching too far, which is best remedied by search- 
ing farther, by closer reasoning and more rigorous 
investigation, 

The strangest absurdities indeed would be in- 
volved in the supposition that we could possibly 
reach to knowledge, which we ought not to attain. 
We are placed in this world by the Creator of the 
universe, surrounded with certain objects and en- 
dowed with certain faculties. From these objects, 
with these faculties, it is implied by the hypothesis 

E 



50 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

under consideration, we may extort secrets which 
he never designed to be known, extract information 
which Omnipotence wished to withhold. 

The second of the prejudices above enumerated, 
that we may contract guilt if in the course of our 
researches we miss the right conclusion, and had 
therefore better let inquiry alone, is still more preva- 
lent and influential in preventing those investigations 
which it is our duty to make. On a former occasion * 
it has been shown, that nothing can be more at va- 
riance with reason, than an apprehension of this 
nature. As our opinions on any subject are not 
voluntary acts but involuntary effects, in whatever 
conclusions our researches terminate, they can in- 
volve us in no culpability. All that we have to 
take care of, as will be more largely shown here- 
after, is to bestow on every subject an adequate 
and impartial attention. Having done this we have 
discharged our duty, and it would be irrational 
and unmanly to entertain any apprehension for the 
result. 

In fact, there is the grossest inconsistency in the 
prejudice now under consideration. If we may 
contract guilt by searching after truth, we may 
equally do it by remaining in our present state. 
The reason alleged in the prejudice itself, and the 
only reason which can be assigned with any plau- 
sibility why we may commit an offence by em- 

* Essay on the Formation of Opinions. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 51 

barking in any inquiry, is that we may by so doing 
miss the right conclusion, or, in other words, fall 
into error ; for no one would seriously contend that 
we could incur any moral culpability by an investi- 
gation which conducted us to the truth. But it is 
obvious that we may equally miss the right con- 
clusion by remaining in our actual opinions. It is 
then incumbent on us to ascertain whether we are 
committing an offence by remaining in them ; in 
other words, it is necessary to examine whether 
those opinions are true. Thus the reason assigned 
for not inquiring, leads to the conclusion that it is 
necessary to inquire. 

Let those, then, who fear lest investigation should 
lead them astray, reflect that they have no security 
from deception in their present state ; and that if 
mere error could be a ground of offence, remaining 
in error, through supineness or needless apprehen- 
sion, must be a much heavier transgression than 
falling into error by the discharge of their duty in 
diligent and faithful inquiry. 

A man, indeed, after the best and most dispas- 
sionate investigation of an important subject, may 
naturally feel a degree of anxiety lest he should 
after all have missed the truth ; but in this anxiety 
there is not, or ought not to be, the slightest ad- 
mixture of moral uneasiness. It is an anxiety, lest 
his conclusions, when they come to form the grounds 
of his actions or of his instructions to others, should 
lead to consequences which he did not anticipate. 

e 2 • 



52 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TKUTH. 

His conclusions may be wrong, and the conse- 
quences disastrous ; but if he has a proper view of 
the matter, he will feel none of the stings of re- 
morse, not the faintest accusation of conscience. 
Haying inquired to the best of his power, he has 
done all that depended on himself, and would ex- 
hibit little wisdom were he to torment himself with 
reproaches for an unfortunate issue. 

The third prejudice we have to consider is, that 
acquiescence in received opinions, or forbearing 
(according to the common phrase) to think for 
ourselves, evinces a degree of humility highly 
proper and commendable. 

If we examine the matter closely, nevertheless, 
we shall find that it usually evinces nothing but 
a great degree of indolent presumption or intel- 
lectual cowardice. There is often, in truth, as great 
a measure of presumption in this species of acqui- 
escence as in the boldest hypothesis which the 
human invention can start. That received or es- 
tablished opinions are true, is one of those sweeping 
conclusions, which would require very strong rea- 
sons and often elaborate research to justify it. On 
what? grounds are they considered to be true by 
one who declines investigation ? Because (on the 
most favourable supposition) they have been handed 
down to us by our predecessors, and have been 
held with unhesitating faith by a multitude of il- 
lustrious men. But what comprehensive reasons 
are these ? What investigation it would require to 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 53 

show they were valid ! As the whole history of 
mankind teems with instances of the transmission 
of the grossest errors from one generation to an- 
other, and of their having been countenanced by the 
concurrence of the most eminent of the race ; what 
a large acquaintance with the peculiarities of the ge- 
nerations preceding us, and with the circumstances 
of the great men to whom we appeal, it would re- 
quire to show that this particular instance was an 
exemption from the general lot ! 

It is then no humility to refrain from inquiry ; 
on the contrary, it is the proper kind of humility 
(or if it is not humility, it is the proper feeling for 
the occasion) to be determined to do all in our 
power to make ourselves acquainted with every 
subject on which it is necessary for us to pronounce, 
or profess, or act upon an opinion. 

From the necessity of using our own judgment, 
or, in other words, of forming a conclusion for our- 
selves, we cannot be absolved. We must form our 
opinion either of the doctrine itself, or of the com- 
parative degrees of confidence to which those men 
who have studied the subject are entitled; and it 
is evident that in the case of disputed doctrines, 
the latter may be as difficult, and demand as much 
investigation, as much knowledge and acuteness of 
judgment, as to come to a decision on the original 
question. 

Let no one, then, deceive himself by supposing 
that he is exercising the virtue of humility, or 

e 3 



54 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

modesty, or diffidence, when he is in fact resting in 
a conclusion, which to reach legitimately would 
require so much knowledge and ability. Nor let 
any one suppose that such a plea will exonerate 
him, in certain circumstances, from the imperative 
duty of entering upon a rigorous examination of 
all the evidence within his reach. Far from being 
a virtue, this kind of acquiescence is in most cases 
a positive vice, tending to stop all advancement in 
knowledge and all improvement in practice. 

From the preceding review it appears that all 
these prejudices are equally unfounded ; that there 
are no forbidden truths, to which inquiry may 
conduct us, no secret fields of knowledge on which 
we can possibly trespass ; that the result of inquiry, 
whatever it may be, can involve us in no crimi- 
nality ; and, lastly, that it is no true humility to re- 
frain from investigation in deference to the authority 
of others. 

Let the inquirer, then, enter on his task with full 
confidence that he is embarking in no criminal, or 
forbidden, or presumptuous enterprise, but is, on 
the contrary, engaging in the discharge of a duty. 
Let him be as circumspect as he pleases in col- 
lecting his facts and deducing his conclusions, 
cautious in the process, but fearless in the result. 
Let him be fully aware of his liability to error, of 
the thousand sources of illusion, of the limited 
powers of the individual, of the paramount im- 
portance of truth ; but let him dismiss all conscien- 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 55 

tious apprehensions of the issue of an investigation, 
conducted with due application of mind and rec- 
titude of purpose. 

As there are some prejudices which are hostile 
to inquiry, so there are some principles of an op- 
posite character, the full and adequate conviction of 
which essentially conduces to promote it. Amongst 
these is the truth that knowledge is progressive, 
and that in this progress every age is placed in a 
more advantageous position for the. comprehension 
of any subject of science than the last. Every in- 
quirer, therefore, finds himself on higher ground 
than his predecessors ; he can avail himself of their 
latest acquisitions without the labour of original 
discovery, and thus with unbroken spirits and 
unsubdued vigour, he can commence his career at 
the ultimate boundary of theirs. Hence, without 
any presumption in the superiority of his faculties, 
he may hope to attain views more comprehensive 
and correct, than were enjoyed by men who im- 
measurably transcended him in capacity. * All the 
advantage, nevertheless, which he has over his pre- 
cursors, his successors will have over him. All his 

* " "VVe can adopt at the present day," remarks Pascal, " dif- 
ferent sentiments and new opinions, without despising the 
ancients, or treating them with ingratitude, since the elementary 
knowledge they left us served as steps for our own. "We are 
indebted to them for our superiority ; and, standing on an eleva- 
tion to which they have conducted us, the least effort raises us 
still higher ; and with less toil and less glory too, we find our- 
selves above them." — Thoughts, chap. xxvi. 

E 4 



56 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

exertions will tend to place them above him ; and 
the very truths which he discovers, should he be 
fortunate enough to discover any, will give them 
the power of detecting the errors with which all 
truths on their first manifestation in any mind are 
inevitably conjoined. 

In such considerations as these there might be 
something to deter a man of narrow views and 
selfish feelings. That his opinions should be thus 
scrutinised and examined, and their imperfections 
detected ; that in process of time he should lose his 
rank as an oracle on the subject of his exertions, 
and be superseded by after-sages, might have any 
other effect than that of stimulating him to ex- 
ertion. To a man of real genius, however, a man 
of large and liberal understanding, and as large 
and liberal feelings, these considerations are at once 
replete with satisfaction and encouragement, and 
destructive of undue self-importance and com- 
placency. 

When he looks back on his predecessors, he 
appreciates the advantages of his position, and can 
thus, without undue self- estimation, indulge a fair 
hope that by strenuous exertions his own works 
may form one of the steps in the intellectual progress 
of the race, and constitute him the author of benefits 
to be indefinitely perpetuated. When he looks 
forward, while he exults in the coming glories of 
progressive knowledge, and anticipates with delight 
the development of truths which he is never to 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 5( 

know, he feels a perfect confidence that any real 
service which he may render to literature or science 
will be duly appreciated, and rejoices that any 
errors into which he may unconsciously wander will 
do little injury, because they will be speedily 
corrected. 

Knowing that were he even the Newton of his 
age, he must be eventually outstripped, he considers 
such an incident as nowise derogatory to his talents 
or reputation: agitated by none of the jealousy 
which is too common a disgrace to men who ought 
to rise superior to the weakness of such a passion, 
he even feels a desire that he may be outstripped 
in his own lifetime, a curiosity to know by what 
modifications his own doctrines will be corrected : 
he is on the watch for new discoveries, because he 
knows that there are minds which, having mastered 
preceding knowledge, are in a condition to make 
them. 

It has been frequently stigmatised as pre- 
sumptuous and overweening vanity in a man of the 
present day to fancy himself superior to men of 
past times; but the view of the subject here ex- 
hibited annihilates all such imputations. It takes 
away all colour of disrespect from the closest scru- 
tiny of the eiforts of his predecessors. He is 
conscious that in the most successful controversy, 
if controversy it may be called, which he may 
institute with them, the greatest success cannot be 
considered as any personal superiority on his part 



58 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

over the object of his remarks; he knows that it is 
the superiority of the station to which his own 
times have carried him ; and thus the profoundest 
respect is compatible with the freest examination. 
What does he admire in the great philosophers of 
past ages? Not surely their errors, perhaps not 
one of their unqualified opinions ; but he admires 
the reach of thought which, from the then level of 
knowledge, could touch on truths the full and 
perfect mastery of which was to be the work of 
future ages, the slow result of the successive efforts 
of persevering and vigorous minds. 

Such a view of the progressive character of 
human knowledge as this, would wonderfully faci- 
litate the pursuit of truth. No single principle 
with which we are acquainted would have so salu- 
tary an influence in promoting candour, liberality, 
openness to conviction, self-knowledge, proper cau- 
tion, and proper fearlessness. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 59 



CHAR III. 

DUTIES IN THE PKOCESS OF INQUIRY. 

Whether the preceding chapter has succeeded or 
not in describing the circumstances which render 
it obligatory upon mankind to undertake the in- 
vestigation of any subject, it will be allowed by all, 
that when it is the duty of men to enter upon in- 
quiry, it is also their duty to adopt the best means in 
their power for bringing it to a successful issue ; 
or, in other words, for arriving at the truth. And 
even when inquiry is optional and voluntary, no 
other course can be wisely or consistently pursued. 

Now the success of investigation, as far as the 
inquirer can influence it, depends on two circum- 
stances, the- state of mind on which he enters upon 
the inquiry, and the conduct which he pursues in 
relation to the evidence accessible to him. 

Let us examine what are the duties of the in- 
quirer in reference to each. 

Section I. 

Duties of the Inquirer in relation to the State of his 
own Mind. 

No one who has been accustomed to discriminate 
the phenomena of the world within him can doubt 



60 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TEUTH. 

that there are certain states of mind favourable to 
success in the pursuit of truth, while there are 
others of an opposite character. These, it is ne- 
cessary for our present purpose to investigate, for 
unless we clearly understand their nature, we can 
fully comprehend neither how far they are within 
our control nor to what extent they are matters 
of duty. These mental conditions may be classed 
for convenience under the heads of moral and in- 
tellectual, the former comprehending our desires 
and emotions, the latter, our opinions or modes of 
thinking. 

In entering upon any inquiry, it is obvious that 
we may be possessed with desires and affections 
relating to the subject, or to the issue of the inves- 
tigation, and also with preconceived opinions re- 
specting it, both of which may have a material 
influence on the result. We may feel, for instance, 
a lively affection for a doctrine, an irrepressible 
desire to find it confirmed by examination, and a 
conviction of its truth, not the less strong for 
having no dependence on any process of reasoning ; 
or, on the other hand, we may proceed to the in- 
vestigation with an utter indifference to the issue, 
and without any decided opinion at all on the sub- 
ject, or even under the emotions of distaste and 
antipathy. 

So varied, indeed, are the combinations of in- 
tellect and feeling under the influence of which we 
may commence any investigation, that they must 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 61 

be consigned to the recollection or imagination of 
the reader ; but amidst all this variety it is not dif- 
ficult to point out, with sufficient precision, both 
the moral and the intellectual states most favour- 
able to the attainment of truth. 

The most favourable moral condition in which the 
inquirer can be, is, unquestionably, when he is pos- 
sessed with a simple and fervent desire to arrive 
at the truth without any predilection in behalf of 
any opinion whatever, and without any other disturb- 
ing emotion of hope or fear, affection or dislike. 
"To be indifferent," says Locke, " which of two 
opinions is true, is the right temper of mind that 
preserves it from being imposed on, and disposes it 
to examine with that indifferency, till it has done its 
best to "find the truth — and this is the only direct 
and safe way to it. But to be indifferent whether 
we embrace falsehood or truth is the great road to 
error."* 

If a man is possessed with a desire to find a given 
opinion true, or to confirm himself in a doctrine 
which he already entertains, he will, in all proba- 
bility, bestow an undue attention on the arguments 
and evidence in its favour, to the partial or total 
neglect of opposite considerations ; but if he is free 
from all wishes of this kind, if he has no predi- 
lection to gratify, if his desires are directed solely 
to the attainment of correct views, he will naturally 
search for information wherever it is likely to pre- 
* Conduct of the Understanding, § 12. 



62 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

sent itself; he will be without motive for partiality, 
and susceptible of the full force of evidence. 

However unaccountable it may at first sight 
appear, it is a fact, that few human beings, in their 
moral, religious, and political inquiries, are pos- 
sessed with this simple desire of attaining truth: 
their strongest wishes are directed to the discovery 
of new grounds for adhering to opinions already 
formed ; and they are as deaf to arguments on the 
opposite side as they are alive to evidence in favour 
of their own views. The pure wish to arrive at 
truth is indeed as rare as the integrity which strictly 
observes the golden rule to act towards others as 
we would wish others to act towards us.* For 
this several reasons may be assigned. A principal 
one is, that men's interests are often indissolubly 
connected with the prevalence of a certain opinion ; 
they are, therefore, naturally anxious to find out 
every possible ground why this opinion should be 
held : their personal consequence, too, is often im- 
plicated in its support ; they are pledged by their 
rank or office, or previous declarations, to the 
maintenance of a determinate line of argument, 
and they feel that it would be a disparagement to 
their intellectual powers and to their reputation in 
the world were it proved to be unsound. 

Another reason is, that such opinions are some- 
times really objects of affection, and things of habit. 

* " The impartial lovers and searchers of truth," says Locke, 
" are a great deal fewer than one could wish or imagine." — 
Letter to Mr. Samuel Bold. Works, vol. ix. p. 316. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 63 

We are accustomed to regard them as true ; we 
love them as the rallying points of pleasant ideas 
and cherished feelings, and we are troubled and 
even pained when they are presented to us in a 
different light. 

In addition to all this, men are glad to find in 
their opinions some excuse for their practices. 
They naturally, therefore, wish to meet with a con- 
firmation of those doctrines which are conducive to 
their self-complacency. 

These, and other similar circumstances, create in 
the mind a desire to find some given opinion true ; 
and of course, as far as their influence reaches, ex- 
tinguish all aspirations and efforts to arrive at the 
truth. 

Even when any one entertains a sincere desire 
to form correct opinions on any subject, the feelings 
or emotions associated with it in his own mind may 
interfere to disturb his intellectual views. It is, 
perhaps, possible to conceive a man possessed with 
a genuine wish to arrive at the truth,- notwith- 
standing a feeling of affection or complacency for 
some particular doctrine ; and endued with such 
self-control as not to allow a feeling of that kind to 
influence his mode of conducting the investigation ; 
but he cannot prevent it from shedding an influence 
on his thoughts. Strive as he may, all the con- 
siderations favourable to the doctrine in question 
will spontaneously rise to his view with more fre- 
quency and vividness, and remain longer above the 



64 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

intellectual horizon than those of an opposite cha- 
racter. 

The same effect will frequently take place from 
an apparently contrary cause. A man may feel a 
dislike for a certain conclusion; he may dread to 
find it true ; and this very sentiment may direct 
his thoughts upon it so exclusively as to assist in 
bringing about the conviction which he wishes to 
shun.* 

In both these cases — in that of affection for a 
doctrine as well as that of dislike — the consequent 
judgment will probably be wrong, since whatever 
fixes the whole attention on part of the evidence 
tends to vitiate the conclusions drawn by the un- 
derstanding. A signal instance of the power of 
fear to cause erroneous judgments in this way 
occurred in the middle of the last century. It 
happened that in the year 1750, on the 8th of 
February, the shock of an earthquake was felt in 
London. Precisely four weeks afterwards, on the 
8th of March, a similar shock occurred. The people 
became alarmed, and their fears jumped to the con- 
clusion (absurdly enough) that a third shock would 

* Locke thus vividly describes the despotism of passion : — 
" Matters that are recommended to our thoughts by any of our 
passions take possession of our minds with a kind of authority, 
and will not be kept out or dislodged ; but as if the passion that 
rules were for the time the sheriff of the place, and came with 
all the posse, the understanding is seized and taken with the 
object it introduces, as if it had a legal right to be alone con- 
sidered there." — Conduct of the Understanding, § 45. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 65 

take place after the lapse of a similar period. Mean- 
while an insane life-guardsman, excited no doubt 
by the prevalent apprehension, went about pre- 
dicting that the cities of London and Westminster 
would be utterly destroyed on the 5th of April. If 
the matter had not appealed to their fears, a pre- 
diction from such a person would have been ridi- 
culed, as there could be no grounds for ascribing 
to him any supernatural powers. As it was, a 
ready credence was yielded to his prophecy. Be- 
fore the dreaded hour arrived, thousands fled from 
the apprehended catastrophe into the country. 
Some passed the night in their carriages, not being 
able to procure accommodations in the neighbouring 
towns ; others betook themselves to the river, and 
lay all night in boats, while crowds waited for the 
dawn of the eventful day in the open fields. * The 
shame and mortification which these parties felt 
when the day had passed without the expected 
convulsion proved how egregiously their fears had 
misled their judgment. Being able now to view, 
dispassionately, the very same evidence which they 
had previously had before them, but which they 



* The affair is thus mentioned by Horace Walpole, in one of 
his Letters, dated Wednesday, April 4. 1750. " I return to 
the earthquake, which I had mistaken ; it is to be to-day. This 
frantic terror prevails so much, that within these three days 
730 coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park Corner, with 
whole parties removing into the country." — Letters, vol. ii. 
p. 328. ed. 1840. 

F 



66 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

could not perceive, all the absurdity of their anti- 
cipations flashed upon their minds. 

The influence of strong feelings in circumscribing 
the intellectual vision is not the least remarkable 
when they are habitually associated with a subject, 
so that whenever the subject enters the mind, the 
feeling accompanies it. Take, for example, the 
case of awe. If a man is habitually labouring 
under this affection, in regard to the subject to be 
examined, or to the issue of the investigation, it is 
astonishing how limited will be the scope of his 
thoughts, how few and how monotonous the con- 
ceptions to which the subject will give rise. The 
accompanying downcast look fixed on a few inches 
of the ground is an apt emblem of the narrow range 
of ideas which attends the feeling. 

It may be questioned, whether this kind of con- 
straint ever exists in any intensity in a mind which 
is occupied with a genuine desire after truth ; fear of 
the result of investigation at least can hardly exist 
there; but if even a fainter tone of the feeling 
predominate, it will prevent that quickness of con- 
ception, comparison, inference, which would other- 
wise be brought to bear on the inquiry. However 
this may be, the fact is, that the state of mind in 
question is generally found attended by a desire to 
receive confirmation in our habitual opinions. 
Men are alarmed when, in departments of know- 
ledge over which the solemnity of awe has diffused 
itself, they alight on any new ground, or, in other 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 67 

words, on any doctrines at variance with received 
principles ; and their wishes are usually pointed to 
a corroboration of the views already familiar to 
their contemplation, and which neither startle their 
timidity nor task their understandings. 

From this brief review it appears that the 
emotions described produce two effects : they create 
desires for some result other than the simple at- 
tainment of truth ; and even when they create no 
desires of this kind, they suggest ideas which would 
not have otherwise entered the mind ; or what is 
equally effectual, they prevent ideas from entering 
which would have otherwise been suggested. 

Important as are the favourable and unfavour- 
able moral states of mind of the inquirer in relation 
to the pursuit of truth, they are not more so than 
the intellectual. In any given mind, the intel- 
lectual state most favourable for the attainment of 
truth is obviously freedom from preconceived errors. 
The pre-occupation of the understanding by erro- 
neous opinions is one of the greatest impediments 
which offer themselves in the pursuit of accurate 
knowledge. The mere pre-occupancy itself is an ob- 
stacle scarcely to be overcome ; but as the opinions 
thus lodged are generally the objects of fondness 
or veneration, the task of removing them becomes 
almost hopeless. No language can describe with 
sufficient force the tenacity with which early re- 
ceived notions are retained: they seem to enter 
into the very essence of the soul, to weave them- 

f 2 



68 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

selves into the tissue of the understanding, till it 
transcends the power of conception to imagine 
them erroneous. In those notions especially, which 
are coeval with our earliest recollections, and the 
origin of which we cannot trace, we seem incapable 
of suspecting the slightest error. * 

When such notions are combined with that kind 
of reverential fear which we have already described, 
there is no degree of absurdity to which they may 
not rise. A modern writer, in his travels through 
Mesopotamia, relates that at Orfah (the ancient 
Ur of the Chaldees), the river and the fish in it 
are regarded as sacred to Abraham, and the inha- 
bitants firmly believe that if any of the fish were 
caught, no process of cooking could make any 
impression on their bodies. Here is a notion which 
the people might at once put to the test by direct 
trial; a fact which they have only to stretch out 
their hands to verify or disprove ; yet so thoroughly 
pre-occupied are their minds by the prejudice in- 
stilled in early infancy, and such awe do they feel 
in relation to it, that they have not, according to 
the account, the slightest suspicion of its absurdity, 
and would think it profane to attempt to submit it 

* " If the minds of men," says Hobbes, "were all of white 
paper, they would all most equally be disposed to acknowledge 
whatsoever should be in right method, and by right ratiocination 
delivered to them : but when men have once acquiesced in 
untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical records in 
their minds, it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such 
men, than to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over." 
— Human Nature, chap. x. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 69 

to the ordeal of actual experiment. Whether the 
superstition is really so gross as here represented 
or not, it hardly surpasses in that respect instances 
nearer home. 

Combining the states which we have attempted 
to describe, we have a union of qualifications which 
every lover of knowledge, every inquirer into the 
facts of history and the laws of nature should aim 
at attaining ; a simple desire to arrive at the truth, 
a freedom from disturbing passion, and a freedom 
from preconceived erroneous opinions. 

Of these qualifications, the genuine desire for 
truth may be considered the most valuable, while 
it is not the least rare. If it is not the mark, it is 
at least the indispensable attribute of a great mind. 
United with a large and comprehensive under- 
standing, it places a man amongst the most efficient 
benefactors of his species. " The love of truth," 
says a writer whom we take a pleasure in quoting, 
" a deep thirst for it, a deliberate purpose to seek 
and hold it fast, may be considered as the very 
foundation of human culture and dignity."* 

Were mankind in general possessed with this 
desire in any great degree of purity and intenseness, 
many errors might undoubtedly still prevail in the 
world from the limited powers of the human in- 
tellect ; but it is easy to see how much the progress 
of knowledge would be accelerated, and how soon 

* Dr. Charming on the Elevation of the Labouring Classes. 

F 3 



70 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

the traces of illiberality and intolerance would be 
swept from social intercourse and civil institutions. 

Men, in fact, are usually in the appropriate con- 
dition of mind here described when they enter on 
study of physical and mathematical science : their 
sole object is to know all that is to be known, they 
seldom have any passions connected with the truths 
before them, and in general they are perfectly 
aware of their own ignorance. 

If the states of mind favourable and unfavourable 
to the pursuit of truth, of which we have now 
taken a survey, were the result of volition, if, in 
other words, we had but to exert our will at any 
time, in order to produce or to put an end to them, 
the course of our duty in relation to our own 
mental condition would be plain and simple. We 
should then be bound by the clearest obligations of 
morality to dismiss from our minds all hope and 
fear, affection and hatred, preconceived opinions 
and habitual associations, and approach the con- 
sideration of the subject with that perfect indif- 
ference for the issue of the investigation and that 
single love of truth which form the most effectual 
security against error. All this has accordingly 
been sometimes enjoined on the inquirer by the 
liberal and the enlightened, who, in their anxiety 
to promote a good cause, have overlooked, for the 
moment, the nature of their moral and intellectual 
constitution. They have fallen into the mistake of 
requiring what cannot be performed. 



ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 71 

"If," says a writer of this class, " we heartily 
desire the purchase of truth, we must shake off the 
prejudices which custom and education have loaded 
us with." — " Make it your business, then," he con- 
tinues, " to extirpate all prejudices, to clear your 
minds of all sorts of prepossessions, to wipe out all 
tinctures, and thereby to make way for truth to 
enter into your souls, and to take possession of 
them." — " If we would be masters of truth, our best 
course is to rid our minds for once of all our pre- 
conceived opinions, to quit our most beloved repre- 
sentations of things, to destroy our old notices, to 
cast away our former prejudices, and so to prepare 
our minds for the reception of truth."* 

Such injunctions would be excellent were they 
practicable. Every one, however, who will take 
the trouble of reflecting on what passes in his own 
breast must be sensible from his proper experience 

* A Free Discourse concerning Truth and Error, by John 
Edwards, D.D., pp. 384, 385. Descartes has a passage much 
to the same effect : — " Itaque ad serio philosophandum veritatem- 
que omnium rerum cognoscibilium indagandum, primo omnia 
prejudicia sunt deponenda ; sive accurate est cavendum, ne ullis 
ex opinionibus olim a nobis receptis fidem habeamus, nisi prius, 
iis ad novum examen revocatis, veras esse comperiamus." — 
Princ. Phil., Pars Prima, § lxxv. 

Bacon seems to have contemplated the possibility of such a 
" deposition" of prejudices in an often-quoted passage : — " No 
one has yet been found of so constant and severe a mind, as to 
have determined and tasked himself utterly to abolish theories 
and common notions, and to apply his intellect altogether smooth 
and even, to particulars anew." 

F 4 



72 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OE TRUTH. 

how impossible it is to suppress or discard any pre- 
conceptions and feelings of this nature by a mere 
effort of the will. No human being has any such 
power over his understanding and affections. 

" Though I might find numerous precedents," 
says a late eminent writer, " I shall not desire the 
reader to strip his mind of all prejudices, or to keep 
all prior systems out of view during his examina- 
tion of the present. For, in truth, such requests 
appear to me not much unlike the advice given to 
hypochondriacal patients in Dr. Buchan's Domestic 
Medicine ; viz. to preserve themselves uniformly 
tranquil and in good spirits."* 

A man who has been brought up in ardent ad- 
miration of certain doctrines, imbued with a strong 
affection for them, and impressed with a perfect 
conviction of their truth, has no power to lay down 
these feelings at pleasure. They have been the 
slow result of years, the gradual product of innu- 
merable circumstances, and we might as well ask 
him to divest himself of the recollections of his 
youth, as of these affections for what he was taught 
in it. 

It is always injurious, always destructive of hap- 
piness, to require or to aim at more in the code of 
morality than can be possibly accomplished, more 
than depends on a man's self; and it therefore be- 
comes necessary to ascertain what, in this respect, 

* Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, vol. i. p. 238. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 73 

is really practicable. Although an individual can- 
not at pleasure lay down his preconceived notions, 
nor dismiss his hopes and fears by a mere act of 
volition, nor cast off his attachments or antipathies 
when he chooses, and it would consequently be idle 
in him to consider these things as duties on his 
own part, or to enforce them on others ; yet he has 
in his power one very important means of indirectly 
attaining the end in view, or, at least, of neu- 
tralising in a great measure the sinister influence 
of his passions and prejudices : he can at all times 
make himself perfectly acquainted with the state of 
his own mind. If he has a strong conviction on 
any subject, he can examine whether it has been 
the result of regular deduction, or whether the 
opinion lies in his understanding unconnected with 
any premises, just as it was placed there by others; 
if he loves or dislikes a doctrine, self-introspection 
will show him the extent and the origin of the 
affection : if he desires or dreads any particular 
issue of the investigation on which he is called to 
enter, the intensity and the foundation of this pro- 
spective emotion will appear to his " inward eye." 
By thus making the condition of his own mind the 
subject of scrutiny, he can scarcely fail to reduce 
the influence of such moral and intellectual pre- 
possessions as are lodged there. The more closely 
he examines himself, the freer he will be from the 
danger of improper bias. 

Whatever effect an examination of this kind may 



74 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

have on his habitual feelings, it seems eminently 
adapted to loosen the power of all preconceived 
notions. To be fully aware that the opinions we 
have hitherto held exist in our understandings, 
simply because they have been put there by some 
external agency, and not as the result of any pro- 
cess of reasoning on our own parts ; that they are, in 
fact, as far as we are concerned, mere matters of 
chance, while it cannot fail to make us eager to 
rescue ourselves from so unenviable a condition, is 
almost tantamount to the power of extirpating them 
from our minds before we commence the proposed 
investigation. Conceive, for a moment, the effect 
which must ensue from the inquirer attaining to a 
clear perception that the opinions he entertains on 
any given subject lie in his mind unsupported by 
the slightest evidence. He believes them; he is 
fond of them ; but in vain does he cast about for 
any reasons on which they repose. 

Here, then, is the precise and the only duty of the 
inquirer in relation to the state of his own mind — 
to examine closely what that state is with regard to 
the subject which he is called to investigate. This 
preHminary task is no doubt sufficiently difficult to 
all those who have not been accustomed to reflect 
on the phenomena of consciousness ; and to them 
the duty may not appear very perspicuous or very 
determinate. It is, nevertheless, incumbent on them 
as far as their ability reaches ; it is also part of that 
process of inquiry through which they must pass in 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 75 

order to attain the benefits of truth ; and even to be 
aware that such a self-examination is requisite, is a 
step in advance to their object. 

To men of thought, to philosophers, to those 
who profess to teach any subject, and especially to 
all who are avowedly engaged in the pursuit of 
truth for its own sake, such a close investigation 
into the state of their own minds is not more an 
imperative duty, than one of the most beneficial 
and salutary tasks which they can undertake. Al- 
ways to commence at this point, will be found an 
immense advantage, not only in prosecuting the in- 
quiry into which they are to enter, but in showing 
them how exceedingly few are the subjects on which 
even the most enlightened minds have any preten- 
sions to being positive and dogmatical. 

What is the intellectual condition in which a man 
of even the most liberal education finds himself on 
attaining a mature age, and being roused to inde- 
pendent reflection? He awakes in the midst of a 
chaos of heterogeneous opinions, which have been 
determined to be what they are by a long series of 
causes, and have been received into his mind by 
unconscious adoption, or fixed by assiduous incul- 
cation, as objects of affection and reverence. He 
finds himself (to use the expressive language of 
Turgot) in a labyrinth into which he has been con- 
veyed blindfold. Upon the grounds of these opi- 
nions he has scarcely bestowed a thought, and yet 
has probably often contended for them with a 



76 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

warmth, a resentment at opposition, and positive- 
ness of language, which rational conviction shrinks 
from assuming. 

Placed in this disadvantageous condition, let him 
invariably make it his first business, when he is 
required by duty, or led by inclination, to investi- 
gate a subject, to examine the origin and grounds 
of the affections and prejudices of his own mind 
relating to it. Nothing will more powerfully tend 
to disenchant him of his delusions, or to save him 
from that arrogant presumption in himself and 
condemnation of others, which is one of the com- 
monest failings both of the vulgar and the refined. 
A dogmatical assertion of opinions will scarcely 
be the fault of one who continually falls back on 
his own understanding, to ask whether he holds the 
positions he is maintaining, from having mastered 
the evidence in their favour, or from their having 
been fixed in his belief without any evidence at all. 



Section II. 
Duties in relation to the Evidence. 

However difficult or impracticable it may be for 
a man to bring himself into the most favourable 
state of mind for the attainment of truth, before he 
commences any inquiry to which his duty may 
summon him ; the next thing is largely, if not 
entirely, in his power, and that is the mode of con- 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 77 

ducting the examination. Here his path is plain, 
and his duty, although far from easy, is manifest. 
The only legitimate end of inquiry is to arrive at 
the truth ; and the most likely means of attaining 
that end is to pursue it with adequate diligence and 
rigorous impartiality. This, then, is his simple 
duty, to examine fully and fairly. The same rea- 
sons which require him to enter upon any investi- 
gation, demand that it shall be properly and effi- 
ciently conducted. As without examination he can 
have no valid assurance that he is teaching truth, 
or acting on just principles, so he can have no valid 
assurance on these points, unless the examination 
be prosecuted in the likeliest way to bring it to a 
successful issue. The duty of inquiring at all in- 
volves the duty of inquiring in the best practicable 
manner, and this comprehends the union of ade- 
quate application with strict impartiality. 

The value of that diligence of examination, which 
leaves no accessible part of a subject unexplored, is 
scarcely to be overrated. When we reflect on the 
various knowledge required to determine any im- 
portant question, the number of considerations 
bearing upon it, the subtilty and complexity of the 
reasonings to which it may give rise, the apparent 
contradictions and anomalies which the whole in- 
quiry may present, we shall be sensible how indis- 
pensably necessary to the attainment of truth is a 
sedulous application to the task. To perform it 
effectually, we must not only merely adopt but think 



78 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 

out for ourselves every proposition contained in the 
chain of argument, as well as satisfy our minds 
in regard to every alleged fact in the chain of 
evidence. 

No difficult subject (and most subjects likely to 
call for express investigation are either naturally 
or factitiously difficult) can be mastered with a 
cursory attention. It has been well remarked, in 
reference to the necessity of every one really think- 
ing on these cases for himself, that no complex or 
very important truth can be transplanted in full 
maturity from one mind to another ; it must be 
sown, strike root, and go through the whole process 
of vegetation before it can have a living connection 
with the new soil, and flourish in complete vigour 
and development.* 

We are especially apt to be deceived in this 
respect on subjects relating to morals. The terms 

* The exact words of the passage here referred to are as fol- 
lows : — " No complex or very important truth was ever yet 
transferred in full development from one mind to another : 
truth of that kind is not a piece of furniture to be shifted ; it is 
a seed which must be sown and pass through the several stages 
of growth." — Letters to a Young Man whose Education had 
been neglected. 

Bacon, Locke, and Wollaston, had all, long before, made a 
similar remark. " An opinion," says the latter, " though ever 
so true and certain to one man, cannot be transfused into 
another as true and certain, by any other way but by opening 
his understanding, and assisting him so to order his conceptions, 
that he may find the reasonableness of it within himself" — Re- 
ligion of Nature, p. 91. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 79 

employed are such as are daily used in the common 
intercourse of life, and we imagine we at once com- 
prehend any doctrines which they are the medium 
of expressing. In physical science, where at every 
step we are encountered by the difficulties of a 
technical phraseology, as well as of practical obser- 
vations and experiments, we immediately feel the 
necessity of a regular application and progression, 
of mastering one principle before we proceed to the 
next, of carrying our object by detail, working our 
way by vigorous and reiterated efforts. In moral 
and political questions, on the contrary, we are too 
apt to be content with mere cursory reading and 
hasty examination : no difficulties are presented by 
the language, no unusual terms arrest our progress, 
no particular experiments demand a pause to verify 
them, and we glide smoothly along the pages of the 
profoundest treatise, with an apparently clear ap- 
prehension of the various propositions we meet with, 
but in reality with a vague conception of their full 
drift and precise meaning. Hence, people are often 
deluded into fancying themselves competent, after a 
superficial survey, to pronounce a decision on ques- 
tions requiring severe study, great nicety of dis- 
crimination, and close logical deduction.* These 



* " The habit," says a distinguished writer, " of dwelling 
upon the verbal expressions of the views of other persons, and 
of being content with such an apprehension of doctrines as a 
transient notice can give us, is fatal to firm and clear thought, 



80 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

results are partly occasioned also by love of ease, 
and reluctance to intellectual exertion. On difficult 
subjects, inquiry, it is not to be concealed, is labo- 
rious ; and the natural indolence of most men in- 
duces them to stop short of that vigorous application 
which difficulties require for their solution. 

But the man who stops short of full research, 
although he may be fair and impartial as far as he 
goes, although he may entertain no desires adverse 
to truth, and may draw correct inferences from the 
imperfect collection of facts he has made, will pro- 
bably arrive after all at an unsound conclusion. It 
is obvious, that if he has not before him all those 
grounds for decision which adequate diligence might 
have brought together, he cannot possess the utmost 
attainable certainty that his judgment is right. In 
proportion to the deficiency of his investigation in 
fulness will be, ceteris paribus, his hability to error, 
and his failure to fulfil the obligation resting upon 
him. An incomplete inquiry must be an incom- 
plete discharge of his duty. 

To those inquirers in particular who are engaged 
in researches, which, if successful, will correct or 
enlarge existing knowledge, diligent and patient 
attention to every part of their subject is invaluable. 
Not a single proposition in the doctrines of others, 



it indicates wavering and feeble conceptions which are incon- 
sistent with sound physical speculation." — "Whe well's History 
of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. p. 240. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 81 

or in their own deductions, should be suffered to 
pass without the closest scrutiny. 

By long- continued meditation, the most obscure 
and perplexed points will insensibly become clear. 
Difficulties will every day crumble before resolute 
and reiterated assaults. 

Persevering diligence in the prosecution of the 
subject is of such powerful efficacy, that it is scarcely 
a matter of wonder to find Newton overlooking his 
own genius, and ascribing his most brilliant dis- 
coveries to sheer industry and patient thought. 
" I keep," he said, " the subject of my inquiry con- 
stantly before me, and wait till the first dawning 
opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and 
clear light." 

Impartiality of examination is, if possible, of still 
higher value than care and diligence. It is of little 
importance what industry we exert on any subject, 
if we make all our exertions in one direction, if we 
sedulously close our minds against all considerations 
which we dislike, and seek with eagerness for any 
evidence or argument which will confirm our estab- 
lished or favourite views. A life-long investigation 
may, in this way, only carry us farther from the 
truth. What duty and common sense require of 
us is, that our attention be equally given to both 
sides of every question, that we make ourselves 
thoroughly acquainted with all the conflicting argu- 
ments, that we be severely impartial in weighing 
the evidence for each, and suffer no bias to seduce 

G 



82 ESSAY ON THE .PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

us into supine omission on the one hand, or inordi- 
nate rapacity for proof on the other. 

This, too, is any thing but a light and easy task. 
It can be performed to a certain extent by every 
honest and sincere inquirer ; but perhaps to achieve 
it in perfection, would require a mind at once en- 
larged, sagacious, candid, disinterested, and upright. 
A man who perfectly accomplishes it, however, can- 
not fail to command the esteem of his fellow-men 
by the worth and dignity of his conduct. It is 
painful to think that such an example is rare ; that 
instead of it we usually find the mere partisan, one 
evidently engaged, not in the pursuit of truth, but 
in searching for every possible argument to support 
and confirm a conclusion, predetermined by his 
interest, his prejudices, or his position in society. 

What a contrast do these two present ! — one can- 
did, upright, fearless of the issue of the investiga- 
tion because solely intent on truth, searching on all 
sides, refusing no evidence, anxious only that every 
circumstance should be brought out in its true 
colours and dimensions, and free from anger against 
opposition ; the other directing all his acuteness to 
one side, prying into those sources of information 
alone where he imagines he shall find what is agree- 
able to his wishes, stating every thing both to him- 
self and to others with the art and exaggeration of a 
hired pleader, sounding forth the immaculate merits 
of his cause, and filled with rancour against all who 
do not range themselves under the same banners. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 83 

Or, perhaps, instead of this angry partisan, we 
see (what is equally a humiliating spectacle) the 
timid inquirer moving cautiously along, as if alarmed 
at the sound of his own footsteps, shunning every 
track not palpably well-trodden, and looking at any 
evidence that may chance to cross his path foreign 
to his ordinary train of thought, with as much tre- 
pidation as he would experience were he to see an 
apparition rising out of the earth. 

The annals of the world abound with instances 
of the most determined obstinacy, in turning away 
from sources of information which it was appre- 
hended might subvert established opinions. After 
the telescope had been invented, some of the follow- 
ers of Aristotle positively refused to look through 
the new instrument, because it threatened the over- 
throw of their master's doctrines and authority, or 
rather of their own dogmas ; and when by means of 
this great invention Galileo had discovered the 
satellites of Jupiter, they were infatuated enough 
to attempt to write down these unwelcome additions 
to the solar system. 

From the lenient manner in which the faults of 
negligent and unfair investigation are generally 
treated, it might seem that they were of small con- 
sequence and light turpitude. To pronounce them 
so, however, under the circumstances described in 
a former chapter, would be little better than an 
express contradiction. When any one is called to 
the duty of examination at all, whether the subject 

g 2 



84 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 

concerns the relation in which he stands to God, or 
has an important bearing on his conduct to his 
fellow-creatures, or is a matter on which he has to 
give instruction to others, the vices of partial and 
inadequate examination must by the force of the 
terms be of serious moment. The consequences of 
bad inquiry will be bad practice. Misery will tread 
on the heels of ignorance ; the conduct of the man 
will be infected with his errors of thought, and 
society will suffer from a course which it has not 
sufficient knowledge or virtue to condemn. 

If, quitting single cases and partial inquiries, we 
raise our views to the effects of these vices in all 
those great investigations which concern the human 
race at large, we shall perceive that far from being 
of trivial consequence they are sources of extensive 
evil, and that this evil must be prolonged and ag- 
gravated by considering them in any other light. 
They are nothing less, in fact, than impediments to 
the natural progress of mankind in becoming ac- 
quainted with what is for their real happiness, arid 
consequently they are impediments to that hap- 
piness itself. 

The only improvement in the condition of man- 
kind, that can be rationally expected, is from their 
gradually emancipating themselves from the various 
errors and multiform ignorance in which they are 
involved. Society commences in barbarism, it be- 
comes very slowly enlightened : every step of the 
progress implies the discovery of new truths, or a 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 85 

departure from errors to which it has been accus- 
tomed, from notions established, and practices con- 
secrated by years. To accomplish this, to discover 
truth and to detect error, investigation is the 
direct means : the more free, diligent, and impartial 
the inquiry, the surer the progress, and the faster 
the improvement.* 

It follows, that to deny the importance of inves- 
tigation, and the importance of conducting it with 
diligence and fairness, is to deny the value of the 
means of improvement, and of using those means 
in the best manner. If then we are under any 
obligation to consult the general welfare, diligence 
and fairness in our inquiries are not only recom- 
mendable qualities, which it would be well for us 
to exercise, but they are positive duties, which we 
cannot neglect without actual culpability. 

And further it is of great importance to our 
moral principles in general, that we should culti- 
vate the spirit of fairness in research and con- 
troversy. While there is so much laxity and want 
of discrimination in regard, to candour and up- 
rightness in the prosecution of our inquiries, while 

* " When the question," says an eminent German philoso- 
pher, " is about the greatest evils that urge the human race, we 
always return to the truth of truths : mankind cannot be helped 
unless they become better ; they can never become better unless 
they become wiser ; but they can never become wiser unless 
they think rightly of every thing on which their weal or woe 
depends ; and they will never learn to think rightly, so long as 
they do not think freely." — Wieland on Liberty of Reasoning. 

G 3 



86 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

research on the most momentous subjects may be 
neglected or perverted with impunity, we cannot 
expect to find the spirit of integrity carried to its 
highest perfection in the commerce of life. From 
one who exhibits a want of proper diligence and 
scrupulous impartiality in his treatment of evidence 
on religious, moral, or political questions, it would 
be vain to look for uncompromising integrity when 
he is called to adjust the contending claims of his 
fellow-men, or to decide between his own rights 
and those of others. In both cases the same quali- 
ties are demanded, and if they are neglected in the 
one, they will be weakened in the other. Nothing, 
on the other hand, can more exalt the moral cha- 
racter than a fervent and faithful pursuit of truth. 



ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 87 



CHAP. IV. 

THE ISSUE OF INQUIRY. 

The important questions regarding the obligation 
to enter upon the pursuit of truth, and the duties 
to be fulfilled in the pursuit itself, having been 
treated of, it remains to consider the final issue. 

When an inquiry respecting any particular point 
has been completed, an impression of some sort or 
other will have been left on the mind of the in- 
quirer ; he will either have attained a clear and 
definite conviction, or he will be more or less in 
doubt and perplexity. The nature of this final 
impression will have been determined by the con- 
siderations presented to his mind during the process, 
and these considerations will have been themselves 
antecedently determined by various circumstances 
besides his conduct in the inquiry, such as the 
extent of his previous knowledge, the accessibility 
of evidence, the natural powers of his understand- 
ing, and other causes. Many of these are altogether 
beyond his control ; what is alone within his power 
is the full and fair research already described ; and 
although this is the direct and most effectual means 
of reaching a just conclusion, it is not always suf- 
ficient to counteract the adverse influences in 
operation at the same time. The most faithful 

G 4 



88 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

devotion to inquiry will sometimes fail in arriving 
at the truth. 

It manifestly follows from all this, that the issue 
of any investigation cannot be the proper ground 
of moral approbation or censure. It is the manner 
of conducting the process to which alone these 
sentiments are applicable. But it is also manifest 
that, if the inquirer should be ultimately left in error, 
although without any fault of his own, he cannot 
reap the benefits of truth. He may be in this, as 
in many other affairs, at once virtuous in his con- 
duct and unfortunate in the result of his exertions. 

After all that has been already urged, these po- 
sitions seem almost too plain to require elucidation ; 
yet so prevailing and inveterate is the error of 
supposing a man's opinions to constitute proper 
grounds of moral commendation or reprehension, 
that it is necessary to expose it at some length. 
Nor will a few words be afterwards inappropriately 
bestowed in elucidating the distinction, not always 
adverted to, between exemption from merit and 
demerit on account of our opinions, and exemption 
from the natural consequences to which our opi- 
nions lead. A clear comprehension of this dis- 
tinction seems requisite for a complete view of the 
morality of investigation. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 89 

Section I. 
The Issue of Inquiry not a Matter of Duty. 

The preceding discussions , if they have at all suc- 
ceeded in their object, clearly show that the whole 
of our duty in relation to the process of inquiry is 
comprehended in adequate and impartial examin- 
ation ; examination, in the first place, of the state 
of our own minds in reference to the subject of 
inquiry; and, secondly, examination of the subject 
itself and the evidence appertaining to it. It neces- 
sarily follows from this, as already stated, that our 
duty is not implicated in the result, whatever it 
may be , that when we are under obligation to 
investigate any subject, it is incumbent upon us to 
do it with diligence and fairness, but not to arrive 
at any one conclusion rather than another. 

This latter truth, or rather this negative aspect 
of the one great truth which it has been the object 
of the preceding arguments to establish, claims 
attention even more perhaps than the other. To 
understand at all times what our duty requires 
from us is universally acknowledged to be im- 
portant ; but it is sometimes overlooked that it is 
no less important to know what our duty does not 
require. It may be questioned, indeed, whether 
more evil has not arisen to the human race from 
their regarding useless and pernicious actions and 
events not within their power, as exacted by moral 
obligation, than from their leaving out of the code 



90 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TKUTH. 

of morality such as are of a contrary character. 
The mischievousness of these imaginary duties 
ought to be clearly apprehended in connection with 
the subject before us, and, as a general truth, de- 
mands a passing e exposition. 

With regard to pernicious actions, a syllable would 
be superfluous to show that it must be fraught with 
mischief to consider them as duties, and consequently 
both to encourage and to commit them. And with 
regard to useless actions, to erect them into so many 
imperative obligations, besides creating confusion 
in our moral sentiments, where perfect distinctness 
and precision are of the .highest value, and inflicting 
injury (as the prevalence of error cannot fail to 
do) on our reasoning powers, brings upon mankind 
all the evils of needless restraint and profitless 
compunction. 

It is equally, if not more, pernicious to regard 
ourselves and others as responsible for circum- 
stances or events over which we have no control, 
which we can neither produce nor prevent. The 
unhappiness reciprocally sustained and inflicted in 
consequence of the omission of imaginary duties 
not in any body's power, the irksome constraint, 
the doubts and fears and misgivings, the disputes 
and dissensions proceeding from such erroneous 
feelings of moral obligation, are attested by the 
melancholy history of human superstitions. * 

* " The greatest burden in the world," says the author of 
Paradise Lost, " is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 91 

Men are peculiarly liable to erroneous sentiments 
of this kind, when the scene of the events in 
question is partly or wholly in the mind — when 
they are events of a sensitive or intellectual nature, 
or external actions so mixed up with mental pro- 
cesses, as to baffle the efforts of ordinary discri- 
mination to separate them. 

It is no wonder, therefore, that the mistake has 
been committed, which regards men as lying under 
an obligation to arrive in their researches at a pre- 
determined conclusion. In the prosecution of any 
inquiry there are certain acts instrumental in at- 
taining the object in view, which are wholly in our 
power, while closely connected with such acts there 
are intellectual processes going on and states of 
mind produced not within our control ; and so long 
as these distinct things are confounded together, 
approbation and censure cannot fail to be mis- 
applied, and erroneous feelings of duty engendered. 
It is, accordingly, the want of a clear and accurate 
discrimination of voluntary acts and involuntary 
mental phenomena, which appears to have given 
rise to the doctrine that it is incumbent on every 
inquirer to arrive at certain pre-appointed con- 



church, but of imaginary and scare-crow sins at home. What 
greater weakening, what more subtle stratagem against our 
Christian warfare, when besides the gross body of real transgres- 
sions to encounter, we shall be terrified by a vain and shadowy 
menacing of faults that are not?" — The Doctrine and Dis- 
cipline of Divorce. 



92 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

elusions ; or, in other words, that a man's duty does 
not consist in diligence and fairness of examination, 
but in his regarding certain doctrines as true or 
false. What these doctrines are, is indeed by no 
means settled ; but that there are some which it is 
a duty to be convinced of, and others which it is 
incumbent upon us to disbelieve, almost all men 
unite in pronouncing. When this remarkable and 
mischievous notion is fathomed, it amounts to no 
more in each instance than a theory on the part of 
any one who holds it, that it is the duty of other 
human beings to regard a certain proposition as true 
or false, because he himself regards it in that light ; 
that they are not only logically wrong, but morally 
criminal, in drawing any inference different from 
his own. 

The self-conceit implied in this theory might 
induce any one to pass it by with a smile, had it 
not become a dogma which lies at the bottom of 
much human misery, and therefore deserving of 
serious confutation. It will not be difficult to show 
how utterly inconsistent it is with the conclusions 
already established in the present treatise. 

If there is any correctness in those conclusions, 
it is our duty, when doctrines or propositions are in 
certain cases presented to our minds, to inquire 
into their truth. Whether these are new propo- 
sitions, or such as we have held without investi- 
gation from the first dawn of consciousness, is not 
material. Circumstances present them to our 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 93 

minds as demanding inquiry into their truth, and 
our duty is to examine. It is obvious that in this 
stage of the business, at all events, it is not our 
duty either to receive or to reject them. To ex- 
amine them is to investigate whether they have a 
title to belief or not ; and if we are bound to as- 
certain whether they have claims on our credence, 
it would be absurd to argue that it is incumbent 
on us to begin the investigation by admitting or 
denying the claims into the validity of which we 
are inquiring. If there is any such admission or 
denial obligatory upon us, it must be at a sub- 
sequent stage. We proceed, we will suppose, in 
the examination with adequate diligence and strict 
impartiality. In this process there is evidently 
still no duty of belief or disbelief to perform. All 
that we have to do is to be fair, candid, and di- 
ligent. We -finally close the investigation, and the 
state of our understandings in relation to the 
subject examined (on the supposition that the 
process has been conducted in the manner de- 
scribed) is obviously the unavoidable and invo- 
luntary result ; that is, it is the necessary issue of 
an investigation entered into because it was our 
duty to enter into it, and conducted throughout in 
the manner which our duty prescribed. That this 
result should be a given, a pre-ordained result, 
cannot therefore be justly or consistently required. 
It would be an extraordinary thing indeed for 
any one to say to us, "It is your duty to inquire 



94 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

into this doctrine, and to conduct the examination 
with strict fairness and integrity ; but although you 
do all this, unless your examination terminate in a 
belief (or disbelief) of the doctrine, you will be 
morally culpable." 

It will probably be objected, " Your culpability 
arises from this, that you did not do all in your 
power to believe (or disbelieve) the doctrine." Do 
all in our power to believe or disbelieve ? Why 
should we ? On what grounds of duty ? Previous 
to examination the doctrine is not to us a truth or 
a falsehood, it is merely a proposition offered to our 
scrutiny : why then should we wish to believe it, 
and do all in our power to believe it, or the con- 
trary? The proper wish on such an occasion, as 
we have seen, is not to find any proposition true or 
false, but to find the truth ; and in regard to doing 
all in our power to believe or disbelieve, if this im- 
plies, as it obviously does, paying more attention to 
the considerations on one side of the question than 
to those on the other, it would be a positive violation 
of duty, an infraction of that rigid impartiality 
which has already been established as an imperative 
obligation.* 

* " An inclination to favour, in any degree, however small, 
one side in any question, is evidently not an inclination to do 
strict and impartial justice upon it ; but the contrary. And a 
disposition to put a favourable construction on facts or argu- 
ments, is a disposition to put an erroneous construction upon 
them." — An Introduction to the Study of Moral Evidence, by 
Rev. James E. Gambier, 3d ed. p. 74. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 95 

But the objector replies, " You have suffered your 
passions to interfere; it is perversity of heart and 
malignity of disposition, which have rendered pro- 
positions credible or incredible to you, that have 
been rejected or admitted by others." If this accu- 
sation is meant to apply to the manner in which we 
have designedly treated the evidence, then as by 
the supposition we have conducted the examination 
with fairness and diligence, it is manifestly out of 
place. But if the intention of it is to charge us 
with being possessed by passions, which have in- 
voluntarily on our part exaggerated some portions 
of the evidence and weakened others, and thus led 
to erroneous conclusions, we reply : 1. This is a 
mere gratuitous assumption. 2. It is at all events 
an involuntary error which is charged upon us. 
3. Since by the supposition we have conducted the 
examination with perfect fairness, notwithstanding 
our suffering under these passions, the greater is 
our merit ; we have shown an extraordinary degree 
of moral self-control. 4. The circumstance of having 
conducted it fairly ought to be received in the ab- 
sence of all other evidence, as conclusive proof that 
no such passions have prevailed. 5. As we have 
just the same grounds for throwing such an im- 
putation on our opponent, we may with equal fair- 
ness suppose, that in forming an opinion different 
from ours, he has been influenced by some of these 
reprehensible passions. 

At this point the objector will probably say, 



96 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

" You have made suppositions which I cannot allow y 
you have supposed that an investigation may be 
conducted with fulness, fairness, and impartiality, 
and not end in the pre-ordained result, in the pre- 
scribed opinion: now this I deny. If the inves- 
tigation had been diligently and fairly prosecuted, 
there is only one opinion in which it could have 
ended. That it has terminated differently is a full 
proof of some vice in the process." 

This we believe is a correct representation of 
what passes in the minds of many of those indivi- 
duals who condemn others as morally culpable for 
their opinions. Tacitly assuming themselves to be 
unerringly in the right, they conclude that others 
could not have differed from them had they ade- 
quately and impartially examined. 

To an objector of this class it is easy to answer: 
" We might with equal fairness and propriety charge 
the same vice upon you. What reason can you 
have for maintaining that all fair and diligent 
examination must end in the establishment of your 
opinion, which we may not have for asserting the 
same thing in favour of our own ?" 

He may possibly reply : " The reasons for my 
opinion are superlatively strong. It is impossible 
to conceive that any one who candidly examines 
can resist them ; they have convinced the best and 
greatest minds; they have never been refuted." 

We answer : " All these phrases are only expres- 
sions of the strength of your own conviction. As 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 97 

to the reasons for your opinion, we have examined 
them, and they appear to us either intrinsically un- 
sound or outweighed by opposite considerations. 
Your conviction of their force is not greater than 
that which we entertain of the strength of the 
arguments on our side of the question. Our opinion, 
too, has been held by men of powerful minds ; and 
if it had not, there is nothing in the circumstance 
of powerful minds having held an opinion which 
can possibly strengthen the direct evidence in its 
favour to one who examines it. To one who does 
not examine, authority may be a valid argument ; 
to one who does, authority in opposition to his own 
views is nothing but an inducement to examine 
more closely, to suspect unperceived fallacies, to 
seek for additional evidence, to review all his own 
inferences, and try every part of the chain which 
connects them with acknowledged premises. You 
will perceive, therefore, that we have as great a 
right to adopt the language of infallibility as you 
have." 

Such an objector as we have here supposed is 
thus evidently driven to the untenable position of 
making the coincidence or discrepancy of the opinion 
of any inquirer with his own opinion, the criterion 
whether the inquiry has been properly conducted. 

This it is obvious can never be admissible. It is 
both logically and morally unfair and arrogant. In 
all arguments the disputants are to be placed on 
equal terms ; nothing must be granted to one that 

H 



98 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

is not to another. If this sort of procedure were 
conceded to any, it must be conceded to all, and it 
is easy to see that all argument would be at an end. 
But the good sense of mankind, with a happy in- 
consistency, often saves them when their personal 
interests are not implicated, from the legitimate 
consequences of their own principles of action when 
those interests are at stake. While every one might 
arrogate such a privilege to himself, yet when fairly 
brought before him, he would see the folly of a 
claim to it on the part of another, and compel the 
unreasonable usurper to desist from the palpable 
absurdity of his pretensions. 

In general, however, people who regard others as 
guilty of an offence in holding a different opinion 
from their own, do not consider the heretical opinion 
as a proof of inadequate or unfair investigation, and 
therefore to be condemned, but as directly criminal 
in itself. Theirs* is a blind unreflecting prejudice 
which is quite innocent of the suspicion that such a 
thing as the duty of investigation exists either for 
themselves or their neighbours. 

It will commonly be found that those who are 
most virulent against others for their opinions, so 
far from having personally discharged this great 
duty, are too ignorant even to have attained to the 
conception of it. 

The consequences of the false theory here ex- 
posed — of considering that the duty of mankind 
consists in the belief of certain prescribed doctrines, 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 99 

instead of placing that duty in the diligence and 
honesty of their inquiries — have been lamentable 
beyond- description, and form perhaps the most 
forcible illustration of the evils of error that can be 
found in the annals of the world. Besides lying 
like an incubus on the intellect of the race and 
paralysing its powers, this pernicious error has 
been at the bottom of that bigoted intolerance 
which has so long embittered life and disgraced 
humanity, and which will continue to do both, till 
mankind awake to a knowledge of their own nature, 
and to a perception of the value of truth. 

It cannot be too freely proclaimed that whenever 
and on whatever subject inquiry becomes necessary 
or obligatory on human beings, the only duty to 
be performed consists in full and impartial inves- 
tigation, and has no dependence on the result. 
When a man has accomplished this, he may have 
failed in attaining the truth ; but he will not only 
have satisfied the requirements of his own con- 
science, but have deserved the approbation of every 
wise and just judge. 

This conclusion cannot be better enforced than 
in the remarkable declaration of the "ever-memo- 
rable" John Hales in his letter to Archbishop Laud. 
The passage has been often quoted, but it will 
yet bear many repetitions. 

" The pursuit of truth," says this single-minded 
writer, " hath been my only care, ever since I first 
understood the meaning of the word. For this I 

h 2 



100 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

have forsaken all hopes, all friends, all desires, 
which might bias me, and hinder me from driving 
right at what I aimed. For this. I have spent my 
money, my means, my youth, my age, and all I 
have, that I might remove from myself that cen- 
sure of Tertullian, — Suo vitio quis quid ignorat ? If 
with all this cost and pains, my purchase is but 
error, I may safely say, to err has cost me more 
than it has many to find the truth: and truth 
itself shall give me this testimony at last, that if I 
have missed of her, it is not my fault, but my mis- 
fortune." 

Section II. 

The Issue of Inquiry attended by its Natural Con- 
sequences. 

Every view of the subject combines to show that 
an inquirer, having accomplished a full and im- 
partial investigation, has performed his entire duty, 
and cannot be justly either praised or blamed for 
the conclusion to which he has been brought. 

In performing his duty he has also been em- 
ploying the most likely or rather the only rational 
means in his power to attain the truth ; but since 
the attainment of truth is merely the probable, not 
the necessary consequence of the wise and virtuous 
course he has pursued, he may after all have fallen 
into error, and in this event, although he will be 
perfectly free from culpability, he will not be 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 101 

exempt from the natural consequences of being 
mistaken. We have already largely insisted on 
the blessings of truth, and it is here scarcely need- 
ful to say that the belief of a truth is generally 
speaking a necessary condition for enjoying certain 
benefits connected with it ; while the belief of an 
error usually draws down a number of evils upon 
him who entertains it. If any one for example 
distrusts the efiicacy of a medicine in a disease 
which it can really cure, he may suffer under the 
loss of health, while an efficient remedy is within 
his reach. If he believes in the harmlessness of a 
poison, he may lose his life from an erroneous con- 
ception of the properties of the noxious substance. 

Thus accurate opinions or just conclusions, are, 
in some cases, the indispensable conditions, and in 
others the probable means for obtaining certain 
benefits and avoiding certain evils ; and he who 
after the most faithful investigation is not for- 
tunate enough to have arrived at the true result, 
will* lose the advantages which would have flowed 
from a more accurate comprehension of the subject. 

If this law seems in some degree harsh, it is the 
same which prevails in all pursuits in which man- 
kind can embark, and it serves to show in a strong 
light the importance of truth. Moreover the con- 
scientious although (in the issue) unfortunate in- 
quirer is not without his reward. Besides the 
approbation of his own conscience for the course 
he has pursued, both his moral and intellectual 

H 3 



102 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

powers will have been invigorated by the meri- 
torious effort, and rendered more efficient for other 
investigations ; nor is it to be overlooked that al- 
though unsuccessful in his principal object, his 
views will have inevitably become more compre- 
hensive and accurate on many subordinate points. 
No right-minded effort to gain knowledge is al- 
together fruitless. 

In the circumstances here described, we have 
before us a man who has pursued a meritorious 
line of conduct, but who notwithstanding his merit 
has been unsuccessful and unfortunate. Generally 
speaking in those cases where this combination is 
witnessed, the feelings excited in the spectator are 
admiration, sympathy, and a desire to console the 
sufferer. A virtuous man struggling with ad- 
versity has been said by an ancient writer to be a 
sight worthy even of the gods. 

But when the union of merit and misfortune 
happens to take place, or is supposed to have taken 
place, in the pursuit of truth, distaste and odium 
most commonly usurp the seat of these favourable 
sentiments. The mistake apparently more than 
obliterates the merit, and we resent it as an un- 
pardonable offence, or more correctly speaking, 
perhaps, we are insensible to the merit and look 
only to the mistake. Strange that because a man 
is innocently involved in the evils of error (a ca- 
lamity in itself sufficiently severe), his fellow- 
creatures should feel a strong disposition and 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 103 

often make the most strenuous efforts to increase 
the bitterness of his fate ! 

There can be no question that such a sentiment 
is barbarous and misplaced, and that the proper, 
the enlightened, the noble feelings for the occasion, 
when it really happens, are compassion for the 
misfortune and admiration for the virtue which 
has not been able to avert it. A barbarous senti- 
ment of this kind could not be maintained, except 
by profound ignorance of the nature of morality 
and of the constitution of the human mind. 

" It is as absurd," says a distinguished moralist, 
" to entertain an abhorrence of intellectual infe- 
riority or error, however extensive or mischievous, 
as it would be to cherish a warm indignation against 
earthquakes and hurricanes;"* but the absurdity 
becomes more exquisite when, as it generally hap- 
pens, the imputation of error or inferiority is the 
work of self-conceit, or sheer delusion. 

In the next chapter the course of the discussion will 
lead us to consider with more minuteness the proper 
conduct to be pursued and the proper sentiments to 
be cherished by human beings towards each other 
in all that relates to the ^search after truth, as well 
as to point out more precisely the errors and vio- 
lations of morality which in this great department 
of action they are apt to commit. 

* Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, by Sir James Mackin- 
tosh, § 6. 

H 4 



104 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



CHAP. V. 

DUTIES TOWARDS OTHERS IN RELATION TO THE PUR- 
SUIT OF TRUTH. 

While it is our duty to enter upon the investi- 
gation of certain subjects, and conduct the inquiry 
with diligence and impartiality, we may be called 
upon by various circumstances to exercise an influ- 
ence over our fellow-men who lie under the same 
obligations, or who have voluntarily undertaken the 
pursuit of truth in some department of knowledge. 
There appear to be two principal methods in 
which this may be rightly done. The first is by 
advising and encouraging others to undertake and 
prosecute inquiry in the proper spirit and manner, 
and manifesting our sentiments of their conduct in 
these respects; the second is by communicating 
to them the information we possess, the facts and 
inferences which have presented themselves to our 
own minds, and thus helping them to their ultimate 
object — the attainment of truth. The first may 
be briefly designated as Moral Influence ; the second 
as Intellectual Assistance : the one supplying mo- 
tives to search for truth, the other means for suc- 
ceeding in the pursuit. These kinds of influence 
may obviously be exercised singly or together. 
Perhaps they are most frequently conjoined, but it 
will conduce to the perspicuity of the discussion to 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 105 

treat them separately as far as things often inter- 
mingled can be considered apart. 

In this survey the improper as well as the proper 
exercise of our influence and control over the 
minds and actions of others will also come into 
view, and lead to a passing notice of that brute 
violence which is sometimes called in to its aid or 
substituted in its place. 

From their very nature the questions here pro- 
posed relate chiefly, although not exclusively, to the 
conduct of people of intelligence, who are presumed 
to have gone through the process of inquiry ; but 
the treatment of the subject would be incomplete, if 
we did not likewise expressly advert to the pecu- 
liar obligations incumbent on that much larger 
class who may be denominated non-inquirers : and 
we shall accordingly point out the distinguishing 
features of their case in the concluding section. 



Section I. 
Moral Influence. 

In various cases it may be an act of laudable kind- 
ness, and in some even our absolute duty, to offer 
advice and direction to others, or to express our sen- 
timents in regard to their mode of treating import, 
ant subjects, or in other words in regard to their 
entering on inquiry and their conduct in the investi- 
gation. We may be called upon in such instances to 



106 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

encourage or discourage, to recommend, to warn, to 
approve, or to condemn. 

The influence we may thus exercise over the minds 
of our fellow-creatures is frequently very extensive 
and lasting in its consequences upon their happi- 
ness, and hence it becomes of great moment that 
it should be properly used ; that our counsel and 
moral sentiments should be applied to promote the 
practice of virtues suitable to the occasion and 
thence the attainment of truth. 

The path of wisdom and morality in this matter 
is so plain that it is truly wonderful how it should 
ever be missed. Whatever assistance we here 
render to any one, whatever counsel or encourage- 
ment we give, should manifestly be with the view 
of inducing and enabling him to discharge his duty 
by entering upon any required investigation, and 
pursuing it with diligence and fairness. We should 
endeavour to infuse into his mind the ennobling 
love of truth. And if we have at any time occasion 
to express our moral sentiments in regard to this 
part of his conduct, it is equally plain that our 
approbation or the reverse should be given accord- 
ing to the degree in which these virtues have been 
exercised or neglected. 

If it is our own duty, as we think has by this time 
been pretty clearly established, to enter upon ex- 
press investigation in certain circumstances, and to 
do all in our power by an impartial and rigorous ex- 
amination to arrive at the truth, it must be incum- 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 107 

bent upon us to counsel and assist others to do the 
same where we are at all called upon to interfere ; 
and if direct advice and positive assistance are not 
in our power, or not demanded by the occasion, we 
should be especially on our guard how we throw 
any discouragement or obstacle in their way, or any 
temptation to neglect or pervert the discharge of 
the obligation under which they lie. Any act done 
by us to seduce, or deter or prevent them from 
performing that duty of inquiry which is equally 
incumbent on them as it is on ourselves, and from 
thus securing the enjoyment of those advantages 
which only truth attained by inquiry can bring, 
must obviously be immoral and reprehensible. 

Nothing, however, is more common than virtual 
if not direct recommendations to shun the duties 
of inquiry ; nothing less extraordinary than marks 
of disapproval and dislike when those duties have 
been faithfully discharged. What is the conduct 
of many of those who take upon themselves the 
office of public instruction, who assume to be the 
guides and counsellors of their fellow-creatures? 
Do they recommend that on any important ques- 
tion you should pay equal attention to both sides 
of the controversy? that you should read the books 
which militate against their own opinions as well as 
such as have been produced in their favour? that 
you should scrupulously weigh the conflicting evi- 
dence? that you should endeavour to be strictly 
impartial and scrutinise their own arguments with as 



108 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TEUTH. 

much severity as you employ on those of their op- 
ponents ? Do they urge, do they even mention, the 
duty of perfect fairness of investigation ? Do they 
insist upon the duty of inquiry at all ? Is their 
language, " Read, examine for yourselves, draw your 
own inferences, diligently and impartially investi- 
gate ; we present you with our conclusions and the 
reasons on which they are founded : we believe them 
to be valid and irrefutable, but scrutinise them 
closely, put them to the test ; discharge your 
own duty, and assist us by pointing out any falla- 
cies you may descry ; let us be coadjutors in the 
grand cause of truth"? Is it not, on the contrary, 
" The doctrine we announce is' the only one which 
can be free from error ; avoid all those writings 
which are opposed to it as you would avoid the 
contamination of the plague ; do every thing in 
your power to banish any adverse suggestions from 
your own minds ; turn from all discordant evi- 
dence ; fly from the danger of impartial inquiry; 
shun the moral turpitude of doubting what we 
teach ; fear and confide " ? 

If, however, the positions we have laid down are 
true, if it is a man's duty to examine, and to 
examine with diligence and impartiality, it is also 
his duty to recommend the same course to others. 
If it would be morally wrong in himself to neglect 
inquiry, to abstain from the investigation of both 
sides of a question, to bestow all his attention on 
arguments of one tendency, to banish as far as he 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 109 

could all opposite suggestions instead of giving 
them a fair and candid examination, then he must 
stand convicted of a moral offence for urging upon 
others the same conduct. On this point there can 
be no compromise. It is either right or wrong to 
be partial in our investigations. If it is wrong to 
be partial, it is wrong to recommend and enforce 
partiality ; it is a departure from the distinct line of 
duty, a deviation from candid, upright, and honour- 
able conduct. Let every man, on proper occasions, 
urge his opinions with all the force of argument in 
his power ; let him explain them with all the skill 
of which he is master ; let him expose the weakness 
of contrary allegations without scruple ; but the 
moment he begins to teach the sacred necessity of 
thinking as he does, to set forth the guilt of dis- 
senting from his doctrine, and to insist on the 
avoidance of all opposite considerations, that moment 
he commits an offence against the moral law of 
truth. 

No further elucidation seems requisite of that 
direct assistance one human being ought to give to 
another by counsel and encouragement in the task 
of inquiry; but a few more words may be separately 
bestowed on those moral sentiments, the expression 
of which, while it constitutes in itself a species of 
advice, is generally mixed with it, and powerfully 
operates to encourage or discourage any conduct to 
which it is applied. 

If, in regard to inquiry, the moral approbation 



110 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

and disapprobation of mankind were rightly dis- 
tributed, they would fall exclusively on the conduct 
exhibited in undertaking and prosecuting inquiry, 
and not on the results ; or, still worse, on the 
opinions lodged in the mind without any inquiry 
at all. Whenever they are thus justly distributed, 
the highest encouragement is given to diligence and 
honesty of investigation. But if men award their 
praise or their censure to mere opinions, without 
reference to the mode of acquiring them, the effect 
is that such opinions are ostensibly adopted or 
repudiated by numbers of people whether really 
held or not ; and the pursuit of truth, instead of 
being regarded as a duty, is abandoned as a fruit- 
less, a blameworthy, and even a highly criminal 
enterprise. 

Hence nothing can be of higher importance to 
the cause of truth and virtue than distinct views on 
this point, and a rigid adherence to the rule of ap- 
proving and censuring men for their conduct in 
regard to inquiry, and not for their opinions. No 
greater injury can be inflicted on morality than 
stigmatising the proper discharge of the duty of 
investigation as an offence, on account of its results 
not being in accordance with prevailing notions. 
It is no doubt difficult in many cases to judge 
whether a man's conduct has been honest or not in 
the examination of any question ; and it may there- 
fore be alleged, that the rule here recommended is 
too nice for use : but the reply is obvious, that 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. Ill 

where evidence is wanting we are under no obliga- 
tion, or rather it is positively unjust, to proceed 
to judgment. We are not to apply a wrong rule, 
because it is difficult to apply the right one. In 
the great majority of cases, it is not the province of 
human beings to pronounce sentence on each other's 
conduct in the business of inquiry. The requisite 
evidence is generally beyond their reach, or too 
subtle for their grasp; and the happiness of the 
world would be incalculably increased, if they strictly 
confined their approbation and disapprobation to 
useful and pernicious actions directly and visibly 
affecting each other's welfare, without attempting 
to intrude their moral sentiments where they can- 
not be applied with any certainty. "It is impos- 
sible," says Locke, " for you or me or any man to 
know whether another has done his duty in ex- 
amining the evidence on both sides, when he em- 
braces that side of the question, which we, perhaps 
upon other views, judge false : and therefore we 
can have no right to punish or persecute him for it. 
In this, whether or how far any one is faulty, must 
be left to the Searcher of hearts, the great and 
righteous Judge of all men, who knows all their 
circumstances, all the powers and workings of their 
minds, where it is they sincerely follow, and by 
what default they at any time miss truth : and he, 
we are sure, will judge uprightly."* 

* Third Letter for Toleration, Works, vol. v. p. 299. 



112 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OE TRUTH. 

In those cases where we are able to form a 
judgment of the conduct exhibited in the examina- 
tion of a question, it is not, at all events, by the 
bare opinions of the inquirer at the close, that we 
can be furnished with the requisite light. What- 
ever other criteria may assist us, these can never 
perform that office: we must resort, in truth, to 
a very different method. Except a man's own 
express declarations or confessions, or the palpable 
existence of external motives of interest or passion, 
there appear to be only two sets of circumstances 
by which we may guide our judgment of his conduct 
in inquiry. 

First, we may form a general presumption from 
a man's known personal qualities and habits. We 
may, for example, fairly presume, that by a man of 
strict integrity in other matters, no wilful partiality 
has been exercised in the examination of any ques- 
tion which he has been called to investigate. In 
the absence of express evidence to the contrary, 
this would be the only just inference. A man's 
personal qualities and habits, however, are known 
only to a few, and even when known they cannot 
be considered as specific evidence of particular facts. 
We have much more exact grounds for deciding on 
the fairness or unfairness of his investigations in 
the second set of circumstances referred to when 
they occur, namely, the qualities which he actually 
exhibits in communicating his opinions to others. 
Diligence, candour, uprightness, impartiality on the 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 113 

one hand, and indolence, disingenuousness, unfair- 
ness on the other, are qualities which belong as 
well to the mode of stating to others the evidence 
and arguments on any subject, as to the mode of 
conducting inquiry, and reveal the character of 
those efforts which have been made in the secrecy 
and silence of the closet. From the opinion of any 
one barely expressed, we can learn absolutely no- 
thing of the process by which it has been formed ; 
but let him produce his explanations, his arguments, 
his authorities, his moral sentiments, and he will 
probably furnish us with sufficient data to decide 
on his diligence, fairness, and integrity : at least we 
have no concern with the course of application in 
which his opinion has originated, except so far as 
these data, and the external evidence already re- 
ferred to, betray it. 

The qualities we have enumerated are often as 
distinctly displayed in a man's writings or con- 
versation, as they are in any part of his conduct. 
Who can mistake the language of sincerity and 
singleness of purpose, for that of interestedness and 
duplicity? who the colourings and exaggerations of 
party pleading for the honest exposition of the in- 
quirer after truth? 

An eminent French statesman once sarcastically 
said, that language was given to man to conceal his 
thoughts. If so, it must be commonly a difficult 
task to use it for the intended purpose ; but he 

i 



114 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OE TRUTH. 

would have still greater difficulty in employing it 
to conceal his moral qualities. 

In any long tissue of sentiment and reasoning, 
the real properties of the mind can scarcely fail to 
manifest themselves. It is as impossible for the 
mean, hypocritical, servile spirit to assume, through 
any long investigation, the moral carriage of the 
liberal, the candid, the upright, the noble, as to 
produce in itself the feelings by which they are 
animated. The greatest art will not suffice to sup- 
press certain infallible symptoms of what lurks 
beneath the surface, while it will be totally in- 
capable of counterfeiting, because utterly uncon- 
scious of, many other indications, universally at- 
tending the qualities which command our esteem 
and admiration. He who gives utterance to lan- 
guage for the gratification of any unworthy pas- 
sion, spleen, hatred, revenge, or whatever it may 
be, may rest assured that the chances are ten 
thousand to one against a successful concealment 
of his actuating principle. 

Here, then, we have proper grounds for judg- 
ment if judgment is necessary, and when we have 
not these, we have only to refrain from the super- 
fluous officiousness and positive injustice of passing 
sentence. 

The practice of pronouncing on a man's fair- 
ness, good feeling, and integrity, not from external 
evidence, or the usual indications of those qualities, 
but from the nature of the conclusions at which he 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 115 

has arrived, is the same in spirit as that of sending 
him to the scaffold for differing from his execu- 
tioner. Neglecting all the various causes which 
inevitably generate differences of opinion, and 
which, in the absence of all evidence to the con- 
trary, ought in each case to be considered as suf- 
ficient to account for any discrepancy between one 
man and another, these mischievous censors can 
find nothing to which they can ascribe a deviation 
from their own tenets but perversity of heart or 
malignity of purpose, and the sole evidence they 
look for of these reprehensible dispositions, is that 
difference of opinion itself. 

This is the very essence of intolerance, the very 
spirit of Smithfield and the Inquisition. But of 
the coarser forms of persecution exhibited in the 
exercise of brute force or in penal inflictions, a 
more appropriate place will be found to speak when 
we come to the consideration of the duties of go- 
vernments in relation to the pursuit of truth. Here 
it will be sufficient to say, what will readily occur to 
every reader, that if it is wrong to endeavour to 
hinder or deter any inquirer from a diligent and 
impartial examination of a question by advice and 
discouragement, it is a fortiori wrong to do it by 
forcible restraint and by the infliction of penalties ; 
and that if moral reprehension and censure ought 
never to be applied by one individual to another 
for his simple opinions, the application of brute 
coercion or physical suffering to prevent or punish 

i 2 



116 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 

the formation of such opinions is still more vicious. 
Every argument in the one case applies with ten- 
fold force in the other. 

" No one," says an eminent writer, " but the 
religious persecutor *, a mischievous and overgrown 
child wreaks his vengeance on involuntary, ine- 
vitable, compulsory acts or states of the under- 
standing, which are no more affected by blame than 
the stone which the foolish child beats for hurting 
him. Reasonable men apply to every thing which 
they wish to move, the agent which is capable of 
moving it — force to outward substances, argu- 
ments to the understanding, and blame, together 
with all other motives, whether moral or personal, 
to the will alone." f 

A writer of a very different school from that of the 
philosopher just quoted, may be cited to show how 
nearly all enlightened men of the present day agree 
in the view of the subject here taken, whatever 
other doctines they may hold which are really in- 
consistent with it. 

" The principle," says Dr. Wardlaw, " which 
leads men to judge and treat each other, not ac- 
cording to the intrinsic merit of their actions, but 



* This is too unqualified : there are moral, political, literary, 
and social persecutors, not to mention others, who long to 
destroy the happiness of such as differ with them in opinion, and 
often succeed. 

f Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, by Sir James Mackin- 
tosh, § 6. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 117 

according to the accidental and involuntary coin- 
cidence of their opinions, is a vile principle." * 



Section II. 
Intellectual Assistance. 

The second way of influencing others in the 
pursuit of truth is by the communication of know- 
ledge — by instruction. 

It must frequently happen that a man who has 
satisfied his own mind on some particular subject, 
shall be imperatively called upon to assist others 
whose duty it is to make a similar investigation, by 
imparting such information as he has himself ac- 
quired respecting it. The proper course to be pur- 
sued on occasions of this nature, it is not difficult 
to discover. The great end of that intellectual 
assistance which he thus renders to others, in the 
supposed circumstances, is to enable them to arrive 
at the truth, through the medium of a full and fair 
investigation. Such an investigation is evidently 
their duty, as it was originally his own, and what 
aid he gives should be with the view of promoting 
it. The most direct and efficient mode of doing 
so, is simply to lay before them his own view of 
the question, with the evidence for and against it, 
without exaggeration, disguise, or concealment, and 

* Quoted in the "Westminster Review, July, 1826. 

i 3 



118 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 

thus to suffer the same considerations to operate 
on their minds which have influenced his own. Put 
an inquirer in possession of all these, concealing no 
doubt and no difficulty, no fact and no inference 
on either side, and you have done all in your power 
to guide him to the truth, and should any error 
lurk in the propositions laid before him, you have 
supplied hhn with the means of detecting it, by ex- 
hibiting the grounds of your opinion and the pro- 
cess through which you connect the conclusion 
with the premises. 

Simple as this proceeding appears, precisely 
adapted as it must be allowed to be for the attain- 
ment of the object in view, and generally followed 
as it is in all departments of knowledge where the 
passions and interests of men do not directly inter- 
fere, it is systematically superseded in moral and 
political subjects by two modes of instruction, or 
rather of intellectual treatment, one consisting in 
presenting to the mind of the person who is the 
subject of it the evidence only on one side of a 
question, and carefully precluding all cognisance of 
that on the opposite side; the other in teaching 
conclusions or doctrines without the evidence on 
which they rest. The first may be called the 
system of concealment and suppression; the se- 
cond, that of authoritative inculcation. 

Both these modes of proceeding are alike in de- 
parting from the line of duty, in debilitating 'the 
mind, and interposing obstacles in the way to 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TItUTII. 119 

truth. Although usually joined or jumbled in prac- 
tice, it will be expedient to treat them separately. 

If when one human being is assisting others in 
their inquiries, his great aim ought to be, as al- 
ready stated, to enable them to attain truth by the 
exercise of their faculties in a full and impartial 
investigation of the question in hand, then to ex- 
clude or suppress any part of the evidence on either 
side, is directly at variance with the duty of the 
occasion. It is attempting to make the examina- 
tion an imperfect one without the cognisance of 
the parties whom he professes to assist. It is con- 
sequently nothing less than a species of imposition 
at once inconsistent and immoral. The result to 
their understandings, even when by such means 
they chance to be guided to the truth, is a view of 
only one side of the question (which must neces- 
sarily be incomplete even as a view of that side), 
and a conviction insecure, because founded on a 
narrow and imperfect basis ; and when (as is most 
likely to happen) they are led into error, there is 
nothing in what has been presented to their minds, 
or in the method of exercising their faculties, which 
can at all serve to extricate them from it. The 
practice tends to preclude the most salutary of all 
intellectual exercises — turning a question on all 
sides, and looking at it in all lights. To deprive a 
mind of this healthful play of its powers is to chain 
it down to stupidity. Not that this can be ef- 
fectually accomplished. No mind can be forcibly 

i 4 



120 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

limited to what is set before it. In disputable 
questions there are certain doubts and difficulties 
naturally presenting themselves to the understand- 
ing with greater or less distinctness, whatever con- 
cealment or suppression may be practised, nor is 
there any other sure way of putting them to flight, 
and preventing them from recurring to perplex the 
inquirer, than unreservedly setting them before 
him, and enabling him to see their real character. 
Any other course is ineffectual, disingenuous in 
itself, and deeply injurious to him. 

But even this system, reprehensible as it is, must 
be considered superior to the practice of authorita- 
tive instillation, which consists in teaching mere 
dogmas, conclusions without the evidence on which 
they rest, opinions without the reasons on which 
they are founded ; and which is usually accompanied 
by directing the utmost fervour of moral approba- 
tion to the mere circumstance of these conclusions 
or opinions lying in the mind unquestioned and 
unscrutinised. 

Besides being open to the objections brought 
against the practice of concealment and sup- 
pression, this course of instruction (if indeed in- 
struction it can in any sense be called), inflicts a 
still greater injury on the understanding, and when 
attended by the described discipline of the feelings, 
perverts the moral sentiments to an extent not 
generally appreciated. Whenever it is adopted, the 
reasoning power is obviously altogether unexercised, 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 121 

the habit is generated of receiving propositions 
without examination or even annexing to them 
precise ideas, and healthful curiosity and ardour 
after knowledge are extinguished. No system of 
stultification can be more completely effectual.* 
Whether the doctrines so implanted are true or 
false, is a matter of mere chance as far as the in- 
dividual is concerned who is subject to the process, 
and yet he is taught to consider this matter of 
mere chance as a peculiar merit on his own part, 
and he finds it draw down upon him the appro- 
bation of the world. His understanding is thus 
benumbed, and his moral sense debased. With 
opinions so acquired, should he encounter any facts 
or arguments of a hostile character, he is probably 
at first filled with senseless resentment, and be- 
comes ultimately perplexed, although incapable of 
being convinced; or if he happens to possess a 
more than usual portion of natural acuteness his 
prejudices give way, because they have not that 
intellectual support on which the conclusions of a 
properly disciplined mind can always stand against 
attack. No man can adequately comprehend a 
doctrine until he comprehends what can be said 



* Locke, when speaking of "those whom the ill habit of 
never exerting their thoughts has disabled," very aptly describes 
the effect pointed out in the text : " the powers of their minds," 
he says, " are starved by disuse, and have lost that reach and 
strength which nature fitted them to receive from exercise." — - 
Conduct of the Understanding, § 12. 



122 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

against it ; but under this system of inculcation 
the unfortunate disciple does not comprehend even 
what can be said in its favour. 

In both systems one thing is clear; they are 
founded at once on a distrust of the capacity of the 
human mind generally to discern truth from error, 
and on a confidence in one particular exception — 
the teacher's own infallibility. If you have no 
distrust of this nature, why not leave the evidence 
and the whole evidence to make its due impression ? 
If you do not assume infallibility, how are you 
justified in trying to fix. your own opinions on the 
minds of your fellow- creatures by a process which, 
in proportion to its effectiveness, precludes all 
means of their detecting any errors which those 
opinions may .contain ? Without infallibility dog- 
matical inculcation would be at once arrogant and 
mischievous, but even with infallibility it would 
not be justifiable, because although on this sup- 
position the conclusions piled up in the under- 
standing would be true, the faculties would be 
injured by the process*, the truths would lie life- 
less in the memory, and there would be no security 

* " An education (if it be so called) in which the memory- 
only retains the verbal expression of results, while the mind 
does not apprehend the principles of the subject, and therefore 
cannot even understand the words in which its doctrines are 
expressed, is of no value whatever to the intellect, but rather, 
is highly hurtful to the habits of thinking and reasoning." -^ 
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, by the Eev. W. Whewell, 
vol. ii. p. 514. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 123 

against the future intrusion of falsehood. The 
only real security against the invasion of error on 
those subjects where difference of opinion exists, is 
a full knowledge of the truth, of the premises from 
which it is deduced, of the process of deduction, 
and of the fallacy of the arguments opposed to it; 
and he whose system of instruction should in any 
way prevent those to whom he imparts his know- 
ledge from arriving at this intellectual condition, 
even though he were gifted with infallibility, would 
be inflicting upon them an irreparable injury. How 
much greater, then, must be the injury, when he 
has no pretensions to the infallibility he virtually 
assumes, when he is a mere erring creature like 
themselves, and in addition to stupifying their 
faculties, most probably imposes upon them error 
for truth ! 

" Is not thought" (it has been eloquently asked) 
"the right and duty of all? Is not truth alike 
precious to all? Is not truth the natural aliment 
of the mind, as plainly as the wholesome grain is 
of the body ? Is not the mind adapted to thought 
as plainly as the eye to light, the ear to sound? 
Who dares to withhold it from its natural action, 
its natural element and joy? Undoubtedly some 
men are more gifted than others, and are marked 
out for more studious lives. But the work of such 
men is not to do others 1 thinking for them, but to 
help them to think more vigorously and effectually. 
Great minds are to make others great. Their 



124 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 

superiority is to be used, not to break the mul- 
titude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish 
over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them 
from lethargy and to aid them to judge for them- 
selves. The light and life which spring up in one 
soul are to be spread far and wide. Of all treasons 
against humanity, there is no one worse than his, 
who employs great intellectual force to keep down 
the intellect of his less favoured brother."* 



Section III. 

Treatment of the Young. 

The duty of exercising our influence, moral and 
intellectual, over the minds of others in the fair 
and straight-forward manner pointed out in the 
preceding sections is of especial force, when the 
subjects of our influence are the young. Here, if 
in any case, a conscientious man will be scrupulous 
in his proceedings. In this, as in other affairs, 
maxima debetur pueris reverentia. " A mind," says 
Channing, " inspired with reason and conscience, 
and capable through these endowments of progress 
in truth and duty, is a sacred thing." f 

Under the designation of principling the minds 
of children, Locke long ago denounced the prac- 

* On the Elevation of the Labouring Classes, by Dr. Chan- 
ning. 

f Character of Napoleon, part ii. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 125 

tice of instilling certain doctrines into their minds 
without exhibiting the evidence, or teaching them 
the duty, of examination, and even of connecting 
the idea of guilt with any doubt or departure from 
the principles prescribed. 

" There is," says Locke, " I know, a great fault 
among all sorts of people of principling their chil- 
dren and scholars ; which at last, when looked into, 
amounts to no more, but making them imbibe their 
teacher's notions and tenets by an implicit faith, 
and firmly to adhere to them whether true or false. 
What colours may be given to this, or of what use 
it may be when practised upon the vulgar destined 
to labour, and given up to the service of their 
bellies, I will not here inquire. But as to the in- 
genuous part of mankind, whose condition allows 
them leisure, and letters, and inquiry after truth, 
I can see no other right way of principling them, 
but to take heed, as much as may be, that in their 
tender years, ideas, that have no natural cohesion, 
come not to be united in their heads, and that this 
rule be often inculcated to them to be their guide 
in the whole course of their lives and studies, viz. 
that they never suffer any ideas to be joined in 
their understandings, in any other or stronger com- 
bination than what their own nature and corre- 
spondence give them ; and that they often examine 
those that they find linked together in their minds ; 
whether this association of ideas be from the visible 
agreement that is in the ideas themselves, or from 



126 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

the habitual and prevailing custom of the mind 
joining them thus together in thinking."* 

This practice of dogmatical inculcation in the 
case of children, coupled with the moral treatment 
usually connected with it, is open to all the general 
objections already stated. It is, especially, any thing 
but assisting them to discharge the duties and attain 
the ends of inquiry : it is in reality the reverse ; for 
no one will surely deny, that if their minds are 
strongly imbued with particular doctrines, if they 
are taught to believe that to doubt such doctrines 
is a crime, if they are commanded to receive them 
as positive and incontrovertible truths of which no 
question is to be entertained, if they grow up there- 
fore unaccustomed to the effort and unacquainted 
with the duty of examination, the effect must be a 
state of mind as remote as possible from a fearless 
and ardent desire after truth, and a conduct in 
regard to investigation in which we shall vainly 
look for diligence and impartiality. 

It may be urged, indeed, that instilling doctrines 
into the minds of children is to a certain extent 

* Conduct of the Understanding, § 41. The same sentiments 
are expressed in one of Locke's letters to his friend Molyneux. 
" Pray let this be your chief care, to fill your son's head with 
clear and distinct ideas, and teach him on all occasions, both by 
practice and rule, how to get them, and the necessity of it. This, 
together with a mind active and set upon the attaining of repu- 
tation and truth, is the true principling of a young man. But 
to give him a reverence for our opinions, because we taught 
them, is not to make knowing men, but prattling parrots." — 
Works, vol. viii. p. 378. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 127 

unavoidable; that at least they must necessarily 
learn many things the reasons of which they cannot 
understand, and take many conclusions on trust be- 
cause incapable of appreciating the evidence on 
which they rest. All this is readily allowed. In 
the course of tuition it may be requisite to lay 
before them many propositions for which they can 
for a while have no other warrant than the au- 
thority of the teacher ; but if we really wish to 
produce in them a love of truth, a desire after 
knowledge, a spirit of candour, and that integrity 
of mind which will best preserve them from error, 
nothing must be taught them as a doctrine which it 
is incumbent upon them to believe, and of which it is 
a crime to doubt. On the contrary, they should be 
impressed, as early as practicable, with the duty of 
fair inquiry. All the instruction given them should 
be accompanied with inducements to exert their 
own faculties, to seek after reasons for what is 
asserted. They should be rescued from the mere 
passive adoption of what is proposed to them by 
authority, and trained to the habit of drawing their 
own inferences. Even when the proof is beyond their 
comprehension, they should be made to understand 
that it is only postponed. All the reverence which 
they are commonly educated to entertain for parti- 
cular doctrines and names, they should be taught 
to feel for truth itself, and for honesty of investiga- 
tion. It is under such a discipline that we should 
expect to see minds of wisdom and integrity arise 
which would be blessings to the world. 



128 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

The sentiments here expressed might be enforced 
by citations from the works of several distinguished 
writers of very opposite schools, but I must con- 
tent myself with a passage from the pages of a late 
elegant author : — "I would not," he says, " have 
it be thought that because I plead for freedom of in- 
quiry, I would, therefore, leave youth without the 
guide of reason and experience. Polybius has de- 
fined man to be an animal that forms opinions: 
as soon, then, as a man begins to show that he pos- 
sesses the characterising quality of his species, the 
formation of his opinions ought to be considered as 
the most essential part of his education. Now, 
this should not be attempted by dogmatical pre- 
cepts and positive laws ; but by persuasion, argu- 
ment, and example ; by assiduously inculcating the 
principle which ought to prevail; and by endea- 
vouring to render the reason clear why it should 
be adopted. Opinions which are communicated 
upon one side without the authority of reason, and 
which are received upon the other without the 
labour of investigation, are seldom honourable 
either to him who teaches or to him who learns." * 

From the numerous examples of the systematic 
instillation of prejudice furnished by the history of 
mankind, two may be here cited by way of illus- 
tration. 

The late Emperor of France pushed the authori- 
tative inculcation of doctrines to an extreme, which 

* Academical Questions, by Sir W. Drummond, preface, 
p. xi. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 129 

by its absurdity, exposed the real nature of the 
proceeding to the dullest observation. 

By means of the national catechism ordered by 
him to be taught in the schools of France, the lesson 
was carefully instilled into the minds of the young, 
that all those who failed in their duty to himself, 
resisted the order of things established by God, 
and rendered themselves deserving of eternal 
damnation.* 

The other illustration is furnished by the prac- 
tice of Mahometans. Their children are sedulously 
impressed with dogmatical confidence in the tenets 
of the Koran, without the slightest attempt on the 
part of their teachers to exhibit any evidence or 
argument, and they are taught to hate with ran- 
cour all who differ from their theological creed ; 
the consequences of which are, a total repugnance 
to improvement, a stultification of intellect, a de- 
pravation of morals, and a spirit of fanaticism and 
intolerance towards all infidels, especially Chris- 
tians. " The parents," says Lane, speaking of the 
Egyptians, " seldom devote much of their time or 
attention to the education of their children, gene- 
rally contenting themselves with instilling into their 
young minds a few principles of religion, and then 
submitting them, if they can afford to do so, to the 
instruction of a schoolmaster. As early as pos- 
sible, the child is taught to say, ' I testify that 

* Considerations on the French Revolution, by Madame de 
Stael, part iv. chap. 6. 

K 



130 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 

there is no deity but God, and I testify that Ma- 
hoinet is God's Apostle.' He receives also lessons 
of religious pride, and learns to hate the Christians 
and all other sects but his own, as thoroughly as 
does the Mooslim in advanced age."* 

From these two examples even the most pre- 
judiced minds may be led to suspect that there is 
something fundamentally wrong in the practice of 
one-sided instruction and authoritative instillation. 
When the dogmas inculcated are different from 
their own, they will scarcely deny the evil effects of 
a system which, if consistently pursued, would do 
much to arrest the progress of mankind in know- 
ledge, noble-mindedness, and civilisation. 

Section IV. 

Public Communications. 

There still remains for consideration one impor- 
tant mode in which a man can exercise an influence 
over the minds of others in relation to the pursuit 
of truth, in which he can render them essential 
assistance in the attainment of the great, object of 
inquiry. By the publication of his opinions and of 
the reasons on which they are founded, he acts at 
once on the understandings df a multitude. Pri- 
vate communication and personal explanations, such 
as we have hitherto had principally in view, have 

* Account of the Modern Egyptians, vol. i. p. 63. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 131 

comparatively a narrow sphere for their evil or 
their good ; but the instruction which is offered to 
mankind at large, has only the limits of the world 
for the ultimate boundary of its influence. 

In the present day, amongst all the various 
means of diffusing information, publication through 
the press is incomparably the most effective in 
assisting the cause of truth, and for the purposes 
of the present discussion may be taken as the re- 
presentative of the rest. " Through the diffusion 
of education and printing (to borrow the words of 
an eloquent writer), a private man may now speak 
to multitudes, incomparably more numerous than 
ancient or modern eloquence ever electrified in the 
popular assembly, or the hall of legislation. By 
these instruments truth is asserting her sove- 
reignty over nations without the help of rank, 
office, or sword ; and her faithful ministers will 
become more and more the lawgivers of the 
world." * 

What are the circumstances which imperatively 
call upon a man to assist the cause of truth in this 
way, it may not always be easy to determine. All 
nevertheless will acknowledge, that the welfare of 
mankind would be wofully injured if every indi- 
vidual, however gifted by nature or accomplished 
by study, were to confine his instructions to the 
circle of his family and his friends, or restrict his 

* Character of Napoleon, by Dr. Charming, part 2. 
K 2 



132 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

efforts to mere personal communication. The pro- 
gress of society in every thing good and great de- 
pends on the promulgation and public interchange 
of knowledge, and the more thoroughly this is 
effected the better. 

Here, then, is an obligation upon all who are 
capable of benefiting society in this manner. On 
whom the duty is incumbent is indeed a point un- 
avoidably left to be determined by the conscience 
and self-appreciation, andj it may be added, at the 
peril of the individual. 

It may be said in general terms, that every one 
who has taken due pains to master a subject, who 
feels persuaded that he can present it in a new 
light, and who is not destitute of the obvious quali- 
fications for the task, lies under an obligation to 
communicate his knowledge to his fellow-creatures, 
provided they are in a sufficiently civilised and 
virtuous condition to receive it without destroying 
the happiness or the existence of their instructor. 
Not to do it, if the matter were of importance, 
would be reprehensible selfishness ; it could be only 
to avoid trouble, or shrink from responsibility, or 
maintain a solitary superiority over the rest of the 
world. 

It is true, he may be deceived in his estimate of 
his own achievements ; an exaggerated opinion of 
the value of what we ourselves accomplish, is 
perhaps inseparable from human nature ; but if he 
has taken due pains, and is actuated by a proper 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 133 

spirit, his conduct is on every principle entitled to 
unmixed approbation. It may happen too that, by 
communicating the result of his inquiries, he may 
be instrumental in promulgating error ; his views 
may wander widely from the truth, and he may 
lead many astray by the same misconceived facts 
or illusive reasonings which have deceived his own 
mind. These are things which, according to the 
constitution of man and the present state of society, 
cannot be avoided. Even in this case, nevertheless, 
he is doing good. His errors are in all probability 
such as have, with more or less distinctness, pre- 
sented themselves to other minds as well as his, in 
the character of truths. To bring them openly 
forward, with the premises from which they are 
deduced and the train of reasoning by which they 
have established themselves as truths in his own 
understanding, is giving them the best chance of 
being refuted, and refuted in so full and luminous 
a manner, that their real character will be con- 
spicuous to every future inquirer. 

Had they been kept back by indolence or timidity, 
had they and the arguments in their support not 
been openly produced and examined, they would 
have continued to haunt other minds as well as his, 
to delude other thinkers besides himself, and create 
those casual and vague disputes, which are per- 
petually arising when a question has not been 
thoroughly canvassed.* 

See Appendix, note B. 
K 3 



134 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 

When the circumstances here described have 
made it a man's duty to communicate his opinions 
to the public, the manner of doing it can admit of 
little controversy. He is quite as much bound in 
this case to honesty of statement and fairness of 
proceeding, as when he is giving private instruction. 
The object to be kept in view is to assist the pro- 
gress and prevalence of truth, which it is almost 
tautology to say cannot be promoted by either 
concealment or exaggeration of evidence, by the 
colouring of facts or the sophistication of reasoning. 
While he who with upright intentions and after 
adequate examination is unfortunate enough to be 
the instrument of disseminating error, merits our 
esteem, no reprehension can be too severe for the 
conscious promulgator of false assertions and falla- 
cious arguments.* 

From the fallibility of which even the most sedu- 
lous and honest inquirer partakes, it also behoves 
every one who publishes his opinions to the world to 
suspect the possibility at least of his being in the 



* " Is it," asks Mr. Stewart, " more criminal to misrepresent 
a fact, than to impose on the world by what we know to be an 
unsound or a fallacious argument ? " " Is it in a moral view 
more criminal, or is it more inconsistent with the dignity of a 
man of true honour, to defraud men in a private transaction by 
an incorrect or erroneous statement of circumstances, than to 
mislead the public to their own ruin by those wilful deviations 
from truth into which we see men daily led by views of interest 
or ambition, or by the spirit of political faction ? " — Philosophy 
of the Active and Moral Poivers, vol. ii. p. 338. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 135 

wrong, and to refrain from arrogantly assuming on 
his own part that exemption from error which he will 
not grant to another. Above all, he should avoid 
the offensive practice of affecting superior moral ex- 
cellence in virtue of the doctrines he maintains, and 
casting odium upon others because they differ from 
him. He should keep aloof from what has been well 
designated as " that dogmatical assumption of the 
upper ground in controversy, which entrenches 
itself in supposed rights and prerogatives ; treats 
as a violation of decorum the free use of language 
in its opponents ; and even while it condescends to 
employ arguments, seasons them with arrogant and 
uncharitable reflections on the motives and inten- 
tions of the adversary." * 

The substantial duty, in a word, of the man who 
makes known his researches or speculations to the 
world, is to take the trouble of due preparation, to 
be honest in his communications, and to arrogate 
nothing to himself as an inquirer which he will not 
grant to others exercising the same function. In- 
stead of demanding from them the deference due 
to an indisputable oracle from whose declarations 
it is criminal to dissent, he should point out, when- 
ever the occasion requires it, the urgent duty, and 
animate them with the manly spirit of impartial 
investigation ; and warn them against receiving on 
authority any conclusions the evidence for which is 
open to their own scrutiny. 

* Aikin's Letters to Ms Son, vol. ii. p. 95. 
K 4 



136 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

Section V. 
The Receptio7i of Public Communications. 

In the department of morality now under con- 
sideration, as in others, duties are reciprocal. If 
in certain circumstances an inquirer is called upon 
to communicate his views of any question to the 
public, the public, or those who are to derive the 
benefit of the communication, have also their part 
to perform, and by the right or wrong performance 
of it the cause of truth and human happiness is 
materially promoted or injured. On the principles 
already maintained, these views ought to receive 
from every one who makes them objects of atten- 
tion, and especially from every one who takes upon 
himself to pass judgment upon their merits, that 
full and fair examination of which we have so often 
spoken. 

We have seen in a former chapter that every 
individual is bound to make a diligent and impar- 
tial inquiry into those questions the determination 
of which is necessary to his conduct in life, private 
or public, professional or unofficial; inasmuch as 
the fortune, reputation, health, and existence of his 
fellow- creatures are often dependent on the dis- 
charge of the duty. 

Under this law every one places himself, who 
assumes the function of publicly pronouncing on 
the merits and demerits of works in literature, 
philosophy, and science. The peace of mind, the 



ESSAY ON THE TURSUIT OF TRUTH. 137 

reputation, the social position, and even the pro- 
perty of the author, as well as the good of the 
public, may all be materially affected by the judg- 
ment delivered. The self-constituted judge, then, 
can be in a fit condition to pronounce sentence 
only when he has made himself master of the 
cause. 

This sentence, it is almost needless to say, should 
be as just an appreciation of the work as a proper 
examination can arrive at. While some degree of 
good will and approbation is due, as already shown, 
to every communication made to the public with 
upright intentions and diligent preparation, this 
can form no reason for withholding a strict apprecia- 
tion of merits and defects. 

A man who presents his views to the world is 
attempting to influence the minds of myriads of 
human beings, and it becomes of importance that 
these views should be put to the severest test which 
human ingenuity can devise. Since it is for the 
benefit of all that truth should prevail, the merits 
and defects, the strength and weakness of a work, 
whatever they really are, should be rendered dis- 
tinctly manifest. As no upright man would wish 
error to exist for his own private advantage in 
opposition to the general good, so he ought not to 
refrain from the exposure of it in the writings of 
others, merely from a principle of humanity. If 
the error is important, the duty of the occasion is to 
point it out. True benevolence here consists in 



138 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

counteracting a general evil, although at the expense 
of impairing individual happiness. 

The whole duty on the subject, indeed, may be 
comprised in one word — justice. This is what 
every one who takes upon himself to pronounce 
sentence ought to give, and more than this no man 
ought even to wish to receive. The general pre- 
sumption in favour of an author's intentions, in the 
absence of all evidence to the contrary, should 
obtain for him the courtesy due to a laudable 
attempt, should secure him from all imputations of 
bad motives, but not shield his speculations from 
scrutiny. Mistaken in some respects as the wisest 
and best men of every age have been, there is 
nothing incompatible between thorough esteem for 
the moral and even intellectual qualities of his 
mind, and a full conviction of the inaccuracy of his 
views and the unsoundness of his arguments — 
nothing inconsistent between respect for the one 
and a free exposure of the other. 

It will frequently happen, that not only errors 
will be committed, which it will be requisite to 
expose, but various mental qualities will be ex- 
hibited in the communication of opinions — vanity, 
conceit, affectation, prejudice, presumption, and other 
offensive and ludicrous characteristics. There is 
no reason, when any good is to be accomplished by 
it, why these should not be set in their true light. 
At the same time it deserves to be remembered, 
that some errors carry along with them their own 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 139 

refutation, and some weaknesses furnish their own 
exposure, so that neglect may be a not less effica- 
cious although a less painful remedy than censure. 

The same justice which requires these errors and 
weaknesses to be shown in their true character, 
imposes on us the pleasanter duty of pointing out 
excellences whenever they occur. To commend 
just reasoning, felicitous illustration, candour, 
fairness, modesty, and magnanimity, is equally de- 
manded of us, as to expose and condemn qualities 
of an opposite nature. Critics do not always feel 
that it is not sufficient to pass over these merito- 
rious qualities in silence — to intermit their vitupe- 
ration when they meet with them : something more 
than this is required by the general good : just 
commendation is as useful as just censure, and to 
withhold it is a fraud at once on the individual and 
the public. 

This is the more necessary to be insisted on, as 
we frequently meet with men, rigid in the appli- 
cation of principles, professing to bring every thing 
to the standard of utility, and severe in their con- 
demnation of all deviations from this rule, who 
appear to think they have done every thing re- 
quired of them when they have performed the task 
of reprehension. With a strong sense of vice and 
error, they have no ardour for excellence ; prone to 
censure, they are without inclination to praise ; 
alive to deformity, they are insensible to beauty and 
elegance. If they attempt to commend, it seems an 



140 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, 

effort against their nature, which dies away in im- 
perfect accents of abortive eulogy. 

Conduct of this kind is reprehensible on their 
own principles. It is equally important that 
excellences should be duly appreciated, as that 
defects should be placed in a true light. In this, 
as in other cases, we can have no better guide than 
the law of truth. Let every thing be regarded and 
represented exactly as it is ; let vices be seen as 
vices, and let virtues appear in their true character. 
If men see clearly, they can scarcely fail, sooner or 
later, to feel correctly. 

True merit requires no exaggerated praise. The 
simplest statement of what has been accomplished 
is all to which it needs to aspire, although it is not 
all which a generous spirit is impatient to bestow. 
Nobleness of mind springs forward with ardour to 
meet every indication of a similar nature wherever 
it appears. There is no surer mark of the absence 
of the highest moral and intellectual qualities, than 
a cold and captious reception of excellence. 

Further, it will not escape the candid mind, that 
being ourselves liable to mistake, we may err both 
in censure and applause. Were we infallible, we 
might with equal fearlessness commit ourselves to a 
description of both the merits and the defects of any 
production offered to our scrutiny; but prone to 
err, we should recollect that errors of censure are 
not only more certainly destructive of happiness 
than errors of praise, but tend to repress the most 



ESSAY ON THE TURSUIT OF TRUTH. 141 

valuable exertions, and we therefore ought to be 
especially vigilant in investigating the grounds of 
our decision before we pronounce an unfavourable 
sentence. 

It is interesting to glance at the consequences 
which have sometimes ensued from an illiberal and 
unjust reception of the communications made to the 
world by some of its master spirits. If we look 
into the history of science and civilisation, we shall 
find that such treatment has had a strong depress- 
ing influence on the most distinguished philoso- 
phers. Copernicus was long withheld from com- 
municating his discoveries by an apprehension of 
the reception they would meet with. Harvey was 
deterred from giving more of his writings to the 
world by the hostility manifested against those 
which he had already published. The second part 
of " Cudworth's Intellectual System" was never, 
brought forward (according to Warburton), on 
account of the world's malignity in judging of the 
first. Jenner was haunted by the fear that his 
great disco very would be made the subject of ridicule; 
and long after it had been divulged, the animad- 
versions cast upon it led him to declare that he 
would think no more for the public good, since 
nothing but abuse was got for it.* 

Even Sir Isaac Newton himself was the subject of 
severe attacks, which at one time seem almost to 

* Life of Jenner, by Dr. Barron. 



142 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

have disgusted him with his favourite pursuits. In 
a letter to Oldenburgh (1672) he writes, " I intend 
to be no further solicitous about matters of philo- 
sophy ; and, therefore, I hope you will not take 
it ill, if you find me never doing any thing more 
in that kind." In another letter (1675) he states 
that he had had some thoughts of writing a further 
discourse about colours, but found it yet against the 
grain to put pen to paper anymore on that subject. 
And in a letter to Leibnitz the same year he 
observes, " I was so persecuted with discussions, 
arising from the publication of my theory of light, 
that I blamed my own imprudence for parting with 
so substantial a blessing as my quiet to run after a 
shadow." * 

These few instances, which might be easily mul- 
tiplied, suffice to show that a real discouragement 
is offered to the finest minds by an unjust and un- 
generous reception of their labours ; and it cannot 
be doubted that the experience or the apprehen- 
sion of such treatment, by stifling many brilliant 
thoughts, comprehensive speculations, and useful 
discoveries, has kept down the dignity and happi- 
ness of mankind below the point to which they 
might have attained. But although genius had 
never yielded a step to such injustice ; although by 
such means no profound train of thinking had 
been suppressed, no happy conception imprisoned 

* Life of Sir Isaac Newton, by Sir David Brewster, p. 56. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 143 

in its birth-place, no discovery nipped in the bud, 
yet assuredly every right feeling demands that the 
happiness of these benefactors of society should at 
least be protected from wanton injury. If we 
cannot find in our hearts to reward their merit, let 
us at all events abstain from thoughtlessly robbing 
them of their peace. This is, indeed, no more than 
our own palpable interest dictates. Even in the 
present day, it is impossible to tell how much we 
all daily lose by the reserve of wise and thoughtful 
men, in keeping back the fruits of long- continued 
research and meditation, from an apprehension 
that the prejudices of society and the rancour of 
criticism might invade that tranquillity of mind, for 
the loss of which no reputation could compensate. 

But it is not only tranquillity of mind of which 
they have to apprehend the loss. Criticism fre- 
quently tells with forcible effect on a man's position 
in society, and even on his property. We are in- 
formed that the deservedly eminent Dr. Thomas 
Young had the offer of 1000/. for the copyright 
of his lectures, but on account of the ridicule 
thrown by the Edinburgh Review on some of his 
papers in the Philosophical Transactions, the pub- 
lisher requested to be released from his bargain. * 

A late author f of no mean abilities relates that, 
after the appearance of a hostile criticism in the 
Quarterly Review on his Characters of Shak- 

• * Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii. p. 18. 
f Hazlitt. 



144 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

speare's Plays, his publishers scarcely sold another 
copy, although before that time the sale had been 
considerable. * 

It is not necessary to examine for the purpose in 
hand whether, in these instances, the criticism was 
just. They abundantly prove that public censure 
can affect the property and social prospects of au- 
thors ; and that therefore, on the common principles 
of the coarsest honesty — of that which respects no 
injury not reducible into pounds, shillings, and 
pence — censure ought never to be cast upon any 
one unless it has been maturely considered, and is 
fully believed to be just. And even such censure 
may have the effect of injustice if it is not accom- 
panied by a candid statement of all that is worthy 
of praise. 

On the other hand, it must be admitted to be 
similarly inconsistent with integrity to pronounce 
extravagant encomiums, bestowed insincerely, or 
hazarded without proper examination. When la- 
vished in this way, they are frequently the instru- 
ments of fraud and disappointment, leading the 
reader to throw away his money and his time on 
worthless books, such as he would have rejected 
had their real character been known to him. They 
thus virtually rob one man for the benefit of an- 
other, while they assist in depraving the public 
taste, and misdirecting the public judgment. 

* Hazlitt's Table Talk, p. 229. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 145 

The laxity which prevails on these points in the 
present day would raise our wonder if it were not 
in keeping with the moral tone pervading society. 
A remarkable instance of it may be found in no 
less a person than Sir Walter Scott, a noble-hearted 
man in general, but who, in his capacity of re- 
viewer, performed acts not to be vindicated unless 
the principles here maintained can be disproved. 

Writing to a correspondent, he says, " I have run 
up an attempt on the Curse of Kehama for the 
Quarterly." * * * 

" What I could, I did — which was to throw as 
much weight as possible upon the beautiful pas- 
sages, of which there are many, and to slur over 
the absurdities, of which there are not a few." 

■afc «ag» Jfr «a& 

•as* w •«■ w 

" I would have made a very different hand of 
it, indeed, had the order of the day been pour de- 
chirer."* 

Here is a plain avowal, that, acting as umpire be- 
tween the author and the public, he was influenced 
by private motives, unconnected with the merits of 
the book, to pronounce an award which would have 
been very different in its character had those pri- 
vate motives been different, while the merits of the 
book remained precisely the same. And this is the 
declaration of a man of highly honourable princi- 
ples, who was fully alive to many of the transgres- 

* Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 302. 
L 



146 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

sions of public criticism. What would he have 
thought of similar conduct in a judge on the 
bench ? and yet there is no real difference between 
one case and the other. 

The view which has now been taken of the pro- 
per mode of receiving public communications would 
be incomplete, if it were closed without adverting 
to the importance, in such cases, of the right appli- 
cation of moral approbation and censure. Although 
this has already been insisted upon in respect to 
private intercourse, and what was then said will 
apply mutatis mutandis here, yet it will not be super- 
fluous to repeat, in connection with our present 
subject, that these sentiments should be directed, 
not to doctrines, but to actions, not to the results 
of inquiry, but to the conduct exhibited in the pro- 
secution of it ; that error should not be treated as 
crime ; that all attempts on the part of any one to 
excite odium against others for differences of thought 
should be unsparingly reprobated ; that the assump- 
tion of intellectual and especially of moral supe- 
riority by a writer over all who disagree with him in 
opinion on the mere ground of that disagreement, 
should be uniformly scouted ; that honesty of inves- 
tigation and fairness of statement should be greeted 
with eager and hearty commendation, and that the 
love of truth should be hailed as the brightest dis- 
tinction of the inquirer. 

Were the principles maintained in this cursory 
glance at the subject consistently acted upon, every 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 147 

man would have the proper inducement to keep 
back or to bring forward the fruits of his researches, 
and to bring them forward in a proper manner. 
Knowing that if he produced what was immature, 
ridiculous, unsound, or fallacious, he must undergo 
the ordeal of free exposure, he would be cautious 
of obtruding what would do him no honour : con- 
fident, on the other hand, that his merits would be 
fairly appreciated, he would feel all that alertness 
in his labours which naturally arises from the con- 
viction that we are making advances to a determi- 
nate point : and assured that the decision of his 
judges would in all probability be right, he would 
acquiesce in it, even if unfavourable, without irri- 
tation, and without complaint, and with the satis- 
faction, at least, that he had made some progress in 
a knowledge of his own capabilities. Above all, he 
would be encouraged in the pursuit of truth by the 
prospect that his efforts would be of service ; that 
any communication he might make to his fellow- 
creatures in a right spirit could do them no harm, 
and might confer lasting benefit ; and that he might 
venture on attempting to enlighten them without 
any risk of being overwhelmed with obloquy or vio- 
lence, because he had succeeded. 



l 2 



148 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

Section VI. 
Duties of Non- Inquirers. 

In the preceding sections the argument in its ge- 
neral scope assumes that the parties whose conduct 
is in question are themselves inquirers, and having 
performed the task of investigation incumbent upon 
them, are in a condition to advise or assist others 
in doing the same. But as we have before stated, 
there is another class of persons to be taken into 
view, who not having gone through the process of 
inquiry, or having gone through it in an extremely 
superficial and inadequate manner, may for brevity 
be denominated non-inquirers. 

If men of this class did not interfere with their 
fellow-creatures in regard to matters of research 
and opinion, their social conduct would not pro- 
perly come under our present notice ; but inasmuch 
as they do very commonly interfere in regard to 
such matters, the discussion of the subject would 
be incomplete if no attempt were made to point out 
the line of conduct which they ought to pursue, as 
well as that which they ought to avoid, in so far as 
their circumstances are peculiar, and do not fall 
under the rules already prescribed. 

It is not material in this view whether individuals 
are non-inquirers by their own fault or from the 
necessity of their condition. The point now to con- 
sider, is their conduct not in relation to the pursuit 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 149 

of truth, but in relation to other human beings 
who are or may be engaged in it. The social duties 
in question of persons who from whatever cause 
belong to the class of non-inquirers are principally, 
in the nature of the case, of a negative character. 
Not having possessed themselves of the knowledge 
which investigation only can supply, such indi-, 
viduals are in no condition to furnish intellectual 
assistance to others, and have little power even to 
give effectual counsel and encouragement to their 
fellow-creatures who are or ought to be occupied in 
the pursuit of truth. As far as they can do either, 
they ought to be guided by the principles already 
explained. An ignorant but right-minded person 
may be instrumental at least in promoting inquiries 
which he himself from various causes is debarred 
from prosecuting. 

But the main obligation of the non-inquirer is to 
refrain from that mischievous interference to which 
he is almost instinctively prone. As he will not or 
cannot assist the great cause of truth in his own 
person, he should carefully abstain from doing it 
the least injury. In this and many other affairs of 
vital moment, the officious meddling of those who 
are perfectly powerless to do good has been an 
immense source of human misery. 

The sort of mischievous interference into which 
the non-inquirer is prompt to fall, is the indulgence 
of hatred and malignity against other people because 
they hold different opinions from his own, some- 

l 3 



150 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 

times by acts of personal injury and annoyance, 
and sometimes by open invective or secret calumny. 
Where the former cannot be ventured upon, the 
latter is the easy and invariable resort. The prac- 
tice of what has been expressively termed " casting 
odium' ' upon others for differences of opinion la- 
mentably prevails in all the self-styled civilised 
countries of the world, and generally in proportion 
to the ignorance of the people amongst whom it is 
found. 

Now, without insisting on what has been ad- 
vanced in a previous section respecting the proper 
limitation of praise and blame to the conduct exhi- 
bited in the pursuit of truth ; without even ex- 
pecting the non-inquirer to comprehend accurately 
the requisite distinctions, we think his own position 
is sufficient to show him the gross erroneousness 
and absurdity of the conduct in question, especially 
when exercised towards those who have really 
devoted their attention to a doctrine which he 
confessedly has not investigated. He differs from 
them in opinion on a subject which they have 
examined and he has not : they have taken pains to 
understand it, he has taken none : they have gained 
information^ of which, as it can be attained only by 
examination, he is necessarily devoid. Yet in this 
situation, upon the mere ground of holding an 
opinion taught him by others, and of the truth of 
which he is incapable of judging for himself, with- 
out ability to weigh the reasons, nay, without even 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 151 

knowing the reasons in support either of his own 
or the opposite opinion, he suffers his heart to be 
filled with rancour, and lifts up his voice or his 
arm against the men who have taken the only- 
rational course for arriving at the truth. 

Such is the real conduct of the majority of human 
beings, prejudiced non-inquirers, to those who have 
sedulously discharged the duty of examination, 
whenever the result of such examination happens 
to be an opinion different from that which gene- 
rally prevails. And that it must in the far larger 
number of cases be different, is sufficiently plain. 
It would be absurd to suppose, that an inquirer 
who had devoted all the powers of his mind to the 
investigation of a subject should have the same 
views regarding it as the uninquiring crowd. Even 
if their respective opinions should touch in some 
points, and be on these points susceptible of being 
clothed in the same expressions, yet the real con- 
ceptions, and especially the related and collateral 
ideas excited by the words, would be different in 
the extreme. The intelligent and the ignorant 
cannot be said (except in a gross and inaccurate 
sense) to hold the same opinion on any complicated 
and difficult subject. 

After this explanation, the non-inquirer who has 
attended to it cannot fail to see, that when he re- 
proaches or persecutes others who have inquired, on 
account of any difference of opinion, he is in reality 
inflicting punishment upon them for the necessary 

l 4 



152 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

result of discharging an important obligation, or, 
when the inquiry is not obligatory, for the issue of 
a beneficial and laudable undertaking. He is con- 
sequently committing a great and disgraceful wrong. 
His imperative duty is to abstain from intermeddling 
in a matter in which he is disqualified from taking 
any useful part. As he can do no good, let him 
scrupulously avoid the absurdity and injustice of 
casting the slightest shade of odium on his fellow- 
creatures on account of any such intellectual dif- 
ferences. 

Although the preceding remarks apply expressly 
to the great majority of mankind, who are, for the 
most part, precluded from regular and methodical 
inquiry by their position, yet they are by no means 
limitable to that class. It is not to be denied that, 
in relation to a great number of subjects, the po- 
lished and the educated are nearly, if not altogether, 
on a level with the multitude. They regard them- 
selves as intelligent and enlightened, and, to a cer- 
tain extent, they are truly so; but general intel- 
ligence gives them little or no insight into questions 
which they have not expressly and minutely ex- 
amined ; and in respect of all such questions they 
can be ranked only in the class of non -inquirers. 
Upon them, therefore, is incumbent all the self- 
restraint, all the reserve in passing judgment, all 
the abstinence from interference which has been 
inculcated on the class generally. Yet we every day 
see them erecting themselves into judges of the 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 153 

most complicated questions, on which their opinions 
can be nothing more than mere prejudices, and 
lavishing condemnation and odium upon all who 
dissent from their dogmas. It cannot be dissem- 
bled, and ought not to be suppressed, that this re- 
mark is largely applicable to the gentler and more 
amiable sex, who, seldom calculated by position and 
education to enter into difficult subjects, and at the 
same time peculiarly susceptible of strong prepos- 
sessions, too often indulge in acrimonious feelings 
and language against opinions which they cannot 
possibly have examined with such rigorous atten- 
tion as could alone justify any one in pronouncing 
judgment. Even an intellectual condemnation is, 
under these circumstances, beyond their jurisdiction : 
but when they proceed also to deal out their moral 
censure, they exhibit a spectacle at which their best 
friends must be pained — a spectacle of vain pre- 
sumption and substantial injustice. 

No doubt every human being, man or woman, 
may innocently entertain, nay, must unavoidably 
entertain, many unexamined opinions, and so long 
as they are expressed without the manifestation of 
any spirit towards other people which would be 
felt as unjust and intolerable in return, no social 
wrong is committed ; but a great social wrong is 
committed when, in these cases, the uninformed 
assume the right of moral condemnation, which, on 
any supposition, can belong only to the thoroughly 
instructed, but which, in fact, belongs to none. 



154 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

Were we even to suppose for a moment that 
differences of opinion could possibly, in any cir- 
cumstances, constitute proper grounds for praise 
and blame, rewards and punishments, yet it is 
obvious that no one would, in this case, be entitled 
to pronounce sentence who had not himself faith- 
fully discharged the great duty of inquiry. Before 
any one can be in a position to condemn his fellow- 
creatures for any tenets they may hold, the least 
which can be required is, that he himself should 
have fully and impartially investigated, not only 
every part of the subject on which he differs from 
them, but also the morality of interference with the 
opinions of others. 

It may be added, that any one who had really 
done this would have lost all disposition for per- 
secution, or even censure. At the end of his in- 
vestigation he could not fail to discern that, while 
the mere circumstance of holding any opinion is an 
object of neither praise nor blame, and while a high 
degree of either may be merited by performing or 
neglecting, or perverting, the great duty of search- 
ing for truth, the highest degree of criminality 
attaches to him who interferes by injurious action 
or contumelious language with the discharge of that 
duty on the part of another. 

Again, then, let it be urged upon all who feel 
tempted to elevate themselves into moral judges of 
intellectual differences, to pause before they assume 
so dangerous a function; to scrutinise their own 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 155 

attainments; to examine whether they are com- 
petent from education and study, and express in- 
vestigation of the doctrine before them, to pronounce 
upon its validity; and even when they are com- 
petent to do this, whether they are justified in the 
moral condemnation of any human being for differ- 
ing in opinion from fellow-creatures as fallible as 
himself. 



156 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



CHAP. VI. 

DUTIES OF GOVERNMENTS IN RELATION TO THE 
PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

Having examined what are the duties of human 
beings individually in entering upon and prose- 
cuting inquiry, and assisting each other in the 
pursuit of truth, we shall be at no loss to deter- 
mine the duties of governments, and to appreciate 
the influence of those political institutions, and 
practices of mankind in their collective capacity, 
which have relation to the same department of 
morals. 

In respect to the subject before us, governments 
are obviously to be considered under the same as- 
pects as individuals. They may be regarded, in 
the first place, as inquirers themselves ; and, in the 
second place, as having to conduct themselves with 
uprightness and propriety towards other inquirers, 
— as having to exercise over the people subject to 
their control that moral and- intellectual influence 
of which a former chapter has treated. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 157 



Section I. 

.Duties of Governments considered as Inquirers 
themselves. 

As an inquirer itself, a government has mani- 
festly a most important part to perform. In the 
discharge of the judicial office, for which all the 
business of legislation is merely preparatory, and 
in legislation itself, the most diligent and faithful 
investigations are continually demanded.* But 
besides inquiries of this and analogous kinds, which 
constitute the very essence of governing, other 
legitimate fields of research are open to the state, 
and cannot be neglected with due attention to the 
public welfare. By the application of its resources 
it may bring to light much useful knowledge that 
would be otherwise inaccessible. It may institute 

* This has been well put by the present distinguished head 
of the French ministry. " La societe existe : il y a quelque 
chose a faire, n'importe quoi, dans son interet, en son nom ; il 
y a une loi a rendre, une mesure a prendre, un jugement a pro- 
noncer. A coup sur, il y a aussi une bonne maniere de suffire 
a ces besoins sociaux ; il y a une bonne loi a faire, un bon parti 
a prendre, un bon jugement a prononcer. De quelque chose 
qu'il s'agisse, quelque soit l'mteret mis en question, il y a en 
toute occasion une verite qu'il faut connaitre, et qui doit decider 
de la conduite. La premiere affaire du gouvernement, c'est de 
chercher cette verite, de decouvrir ce qui est juste, raisonnable, 
ce qui convient a la societe." — Cours d'Histoire Moderne, par 
M. Gtjtzot, 5 e Lecon. 



158 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

inquiries and researches for which the means of 
individuals are utterly inadequate. In this way 
we have seen expeditions sent out for astronomical 
and geographical observation, for surveying re- 
gions, coasts, and harbours, thus rendering our 
knowledge of the globe more extensive and accu- 
rate, and navigation safe and certain. We have 
also seen commissions of inquiry appointed to in- 
vestigate public institutions, social customs, moral 
and physical influences, and modes of life, which 
no private exertions would have been competent 
to examine and appreciate with sufficient fulness 
and accuracy. * 

Hence it is plain that in certain circumstances 
a government may be morally bound to enter upon 
inquiries in the same way as an individual ; and it 
is equally plain that in pursuing its investigations 
it is under the same obligation as any other in- 



* " Still the agency of government in regard to knowledge 
is necessarily superficial and narrow. The great sources of 
intellectual power and progress to a people are its strong and 
original thinkers, be they found where they may. Government 
cannot and does not extend the bounds of knowledge ; cannot 
make experiments in the laboratory, explore the laws of animal 
or vegetable nature, or establish the principles of criticism, 
morals, and religion. The energy which is to carry forward 
the intellect of a people belongs chiefly to private individuals, 
who devote themselves to lonely thought, who worship truth, 
who originate the views demanded by their age, who help us to 
throw off the yoke of established prejudices, who improve on 
old modes of education, or invent better." — Character of 
Napoleon, by Dr. Channing, part ii. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 159 

quirer to fulness and fairness of research. All that 
has been said as to the duties of the individual is 
applicable, with little modification, to the case of 
government ; and to repeat it here would conse- 
quently be a needless fatigue to the reader. 



Section II. 

Duties of Governments towards their Subjects con- 
sidered as Inquirers. — Encouragement of Inquiry. 

A government is, secondly, to be viewed in its 
relations and conduct to other inquirers : it is to 
be considered as to its power of exercising over its 
subjects a moral and intellectual influence in refer- 
ence to the pursuit of truth ; of supplying both 
motives and means for inquiry to the people ; of 
rendering them counsel and assistance in the bu- 
siness of investigation. Here, too, the same prin- 
ciples are applicable as in the case of individuals, 
although the duties may not be exactly corre- 
spondent or co-extensive, and the attending circum- 
stances may be more complicated. 

If the state interfere at all in this matter, it 
should plainly exert its moral and intellectual in- 
fluence for promoting the ends already described : 
that is to say, for the twofold purpose of inducing 
and assisting its subjects to discharge the duty of 
inquiry, and of enabling them to attain the only 



160 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

legitimate object of inquiry — truth. In strict ad- 
herence to these objects, it should create no parti- 
alities and antipathies to any particular doctrines ; 
it should hold out no inducements to imperfect and 
unfair examination ; it should have recourse to 
nothing like authoritative inculcation ; it should 
attempt no suppression or concealment of evidence ; 
it should leave conclusions or opinions unpatro- 
nised and unpunished, and extend its encourage- 
ment to nothing but enterprise in undertaking, 
and diligence and fairness in conducting, investi- 
gation. 

These are the right and appropriate principles 
on which it should act, the legitimate boundaries 
in which it should confine itself. In so far as any 
act, or law, or institution, intrudes beyond these 
limits, its effects on the cause of truth and virtue 
are injurious. If complete and accurate knowledge 
is important to mankind, if full and unfettered re- 
search is the way to gain possession of it, if exemp- 
tion from prejudice and a simple wish to attain 
correct conclusions form the proper state of mind 
for entering upon any subject, and diligent and 
impartial attention to the conflicting evidence the 
proper conduct to be pursued during the examina- 
tion, then every political regulation or institution 
which circumscribes inquiry, which creates other 
wishes, and offers inducements to pursue a different 
conduct, carries with it its own condemnation. 
Eeprehensible in an individual, this course is at 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 161 

least equally so in the state. By such proceed- 
ings, society in fact depraves and injures its own 
members. 

Let us then examine the power and the policy of 
governments by this test. Let us see how far they 
are able to promote the great objects to be kept in 
view, and how far the course of interference gene- 
rally adopted in modern communities assists and 
encourages the people in attaining the desirable 
ends here set forth, or on the other hand impedes 
and perverts their efforts. 

Of the two objects to be regarded, as already 
pointed out, when one party interferes by moral 
influence and intellectual assistance with another in 
the business of investigation, the first can scarcely 
be contemplated by any one as coming within the 
province of the supreme authority. 

There seems to be no practicable way of en- 
couraging and fostering by authority the virtue of 
diligent faithfulness in undertaking and prosecuting 
such inquiries as are personally incumbent on the 
individual members of the community, either by 
rewards on the one hand, or by punishment for 
neglect of the duty on the other. The requisite 
evidence in these cases is altogether of too subtle 
and impalpable a nature to be reached or appre- 
ciated by the state. The duty in question, like 
many others, is one in the discharge of which a 
government can give no direct assistance, and the 
attempt to do it could only lead to waste of means 

M 



162 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

and misapplication of time. The virtue to be ex- 
ercised is too delicate for the coarse hand of power 
to touch. 

If this is a correct representation, if the promo- 
tion of this virtue, like many other desirable ends, 
lies without the province of authority, the whole 
duty of government in the matter is to take espe- 
cial care not to injure the cause which it is power- 
less to assist. As it can lend no positive aid, the 
important point left for it to attend to is scru- 
pulously to refrain from discouraging or repelling 
or seducing its subjects from the discharge of those 
duties of inquiry, which as individuals they are 
bound to perform. Incapable of interfering so as 
to promote, it must not interfere to pervert the 
motives and eiforts of the inquirer. 

Although this is one of the great princi- 
ples by which public measures and institutions 
are to be tried, it seems never to have been dis- 
tinctly recognised or understood. The just and 
indispensable abstinence from intermeddling incul- 
cated by it, has consequently never been uniformly 
and consistently practised ; and it is a singular 
feature in the case that the methods to be imme- 
diately examined which governments have fre- 
quently adopted with the professed view of aiding 
the people in the second object, — the attainment of 
truth, — have had a direct tendency to counteract the 
accomplishment of the first object, — a faithful dis- 
charge of the duty of inquiry. Governments have 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 163 

often, in fact, sought to guide the people to the 
truth (professedly at least) in some of the most 
important departments of knowledge, by offering 
inducements not to inquire, or not to inquire in the 
manner which duty and wisdom alike prescribe. 

This will clearly appear in the course of the 
examination of such methods to which we now 
proceed. 



Section III. 

Continuation of the Subject. — Methods of promoting 
the attainment of Truth. 

There are several methods which governments 
may adopt with the view of enlarging the existing 
stock of knowledge and diffusing it amongst the 
people, or, what is the same thing, of assisting them 
in the attainment of truth. 

One method is to engage learned and skilful men 
to study and to teach certain branches of know- 
ledge, without any attempt to prescribe the par- 
ticular doctrines or conclusions which shall be 
inculcated. 

A second method is to engage such men to teach, 
but at the same time to define beforehand, the 
specific doctrines which shall be taught. 

A third method, frequently but not necessarily 
combined with the second, is to repress by force all 

m 2 



164 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

doctrines at variance with such as are authori- 
tatively prescribed. 

The remaining business of the present chapter is 
to try these several methods by the principles 
already laid down. 

Subsection I. 

Employing Public Instructors. 

With regard to the first of the methods enu- 
merated, it is unnecessary here to discuss its abso- 
lute policy ; — whether it is better for governments 
to establish schools and professorships, and to put 
forth treatises in any department of science, or on 
the contrary to leave such matters entirely to the 
play of interests and feelings in the community. 
Our present business is to examine solely the con- 
sistency of the method with the principles which 
ought to govern the conduct of human beings to 
each other. 

This examination will not detain us long. When 
the state engages a competent teacher to instruct the 
people upon a given branch of knowledge without 
any restriction as to particular conclusions, any impo- 
sition of pre-appointed doctrines, it obviously pur- 
sues the same just and simple course as the man 
who candidly lays before his friend whatever he 
himself knows in relation to any contemplated 
inquiry. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 165 

Such a proceeding may be superfluous and of- 
ficious, but it can do no harm to the cause of truth ; 
whether politic or impolitic in itself, it does not 
infringe the principles here maintained. Endowing 
professorships of Natural Philosophy may be taken 
as an example of appointing instructors to teach a 
subject without prescribing what particular doctrines 
shall be taught. By such means the people are 
doubtless assisted to attain important knowledge. 

The second method which governments may take 
for the professed purpose of guiding the people to 
sound and accurate opinions, is to select certain 
conclusions or doctrines, and to bestow emolument 
on individuals for teaching them. It is obvious 
that here the character of the proceeding is entirely 
changed. Let us examine it under the two points 
of view already intimated — 1st, as to its effects on 
the people as responsible beings having personally 
to discharge the duty of inquiry; and, 2dly, as to its 
effects on their success in attaining truth. 

As to the first, no one can be at a loss to perceive 
what must inevitably ensue both to the teacher and 
to the taught. The functionary who enters the service 
of a government on such a condition has no choice, 
during the whole of his career, as to what he shall 
teach. From the first day to the last of a life 
which, as it is a life of tuition, ought to be a life of 
inquiry, he can ostensibly make no deviation from 
the opinions to which he originally bound himself. 
He must, throughout, either conform to the pre- 

m 3 



166 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

scribed doctrines, or quit his station and give up 
the emolument arising from it. At the outset he 
either believes or disbelieves the doctrines. If he 
believes them, he has cogent motives for abstaining 
from all examination of their validity ; at least from 
any fair and candid examination of the objections 
brought against them. The indolence of mind en- 
gendered by the perfect coincidence of his opinions 
and his interest disposes him to shun an intellectual 
effort, which could not have a happier issue than 
the conclusion in which he is already at his ease ; 
and the apprehension of the bare possibility of a 
different result operates equally to dissuade him 
from the enterprise. Every consideration presented 
by the circumstances in which he is placed suggests, 
that his exertions should be restricted to an inquiry 
after more striking and ingenious arguments in 
support of the opinions which he is at present for- 
tunate enough to hold. 

If, on the other hand, he does not believe the 
doctrines which he has undertaken to profess and 
expound, he will have equally strong reasons to 
keep him from a full and impartial inquiry into 
their truth. To escape the degradation of inculcat- 
ing on others doctrines which he disbelieves himself, 
he will apply all his attention to the evidence in 
their favour: all his diligence, his talent, his in- 
genuity, will be exerted to magnify the arguments 
that he wishes to find conclusive ; all his care will 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 167 

be employed to keep his mind from the operation of 
antagonist considerations. 

A man in either of the situations described can 
hardly be expected to be possessed with a wish to 
arrive at the truth, whatever it may be. It is the 
natural tendency of his position to destroy this 
wish in the most candid and impartial mind, and to 
substitute in its place the desire to attain or 
strengthen a conviction of the prescribed doctrines. 
The consequences of arriving at results inconsistent 
with them are too fearful for him to contemplate, 
and he will therefore venture on no course of study 
or exertion in which he does not see a probable 
termination in their favour. 

Thus shackled and biassed in his own inquiries, 
it is easy to perceive what sort of influence he will 
exert over those persons whom it is his province to 
instruct. A man who shrinks from full and fair 
investigation himself, is not likely to recommend 
that duty to others, while he is necessarily inca- 
pacitated from presenting to them an impartial 
statement of evidence. Instead then of rendering 
assistance to his fellow-creatures, in the way pointed 
out in the last chapter, he will probably resort to 
dogmatical declamation, and endeavour to deter 
others by raising conscientious alarms or dealing 
out moral opprobrium from that fearless pursuit of 
truth which the temptations and restraints of his 
position have made impossible to him. In how 
many other ways soever he may be doing good, he 

m 4 



168 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

will, in this respect, be employed, perhaps uncon- 
sciously and unintentionally, in perverting the 
minds of his fellow-men ; and unless he rise far 
superior to the noxious influences of the situation 
in which he has been placed by the state, he will 
become (with equal unconsciousness) an oppressor 
and persecutor. Thus, by this system of pre- 
appointed doctrines, not only the national instruct- 
ors, but through them the community at large, will 
be prevented or deterred from fulfilling the duty 
of fair and adequate investigation ; diligence and ho- 
nesty in the pursuit of truth will be discouraged, and 
a spirit of intolerance engendered and maintained. 

It may be remarked in passing that the effects 
here described do not, manifestly, arise from the 
circumstance of the benefit being held out by 
the state, nor from its being mainly of a pecu- 
niary nature, nor from the particular department 
of knowledge to which the doctrines belong. The 
annexation of any advantage of whatever cha- 
racter, whether by positive institution or by the 
habits of the community to any particular opinions, 
be the subject what it may, has the same conse- 
quences. Eligibility to honours, professional em- 
ployment, the esteem of friends, reputation in so- 
ciety, popularity with the crowd, and other benefits 
accruing from the profession of certain opinions, 
may equally present inducements to negligent and 
impartial treatment of evidence. The temptation 
of the advantages beforehand and the apprehension 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 169 

of losing them afterwards, are essentially the same 
under all these modifications, and operate in a 
similar way. * 

Such institutions and practices have also a further 
effect besides their direct influence over the minds 
of the parties as already described. Men, seeing 
the advantages of holding these doctrines, and 
some of them feeling perhaps the evils of disbe- 
lieving them, are particularly careful to implant 
them in the minds of their children, that their 
descendants may fully possess the firm conviction 
which removes so many obstacles from the career 
of fame and fortune, and thus the pernicious prac- 
tice of dogmatical instillation is perpetuated, while 
the duty of inquiry remains neglected and un- 
taught. 

Thus as to the first of the objects which the 
people have to regard, and which the state, if it 
interfere at all, ought to encourage and assist them 
to accomplish ; governments, whenever they pursue 
this method, do nothing to promote but a great 
deal to counteract it. 

Instead of either refraining from interference or 
adopting a system calculated to impress upon the 

* The powerful influence of public opinion, independently of 
positive institution, in seducing and deterring individuals from 
the fearless and manly pursuit of truth, may be seen plainly 
enough in our own country, but perhaps on a still larger scale 
in America, as vividly described by De Tocqueville. Vide 
Note E. in Appendix, referred to in its proper place under the 
next Section. 



170 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 

people the duty of inquiry, to cherish in the com- 
munity a conscientious regard to impartial inves- 
tigation, to inspire all classes and especially the 
national instructors with a love of truth, they offer 
inducements to unfairness of examination and insin- 
cerity of profession. 

We turn then next to inquire how far this 
method accomplishes what it professes to under- 
take — with what success it guides the people to 
the truth. 

In the first place, it must occur to every one, 
after the discussions already gone through, that the 
most effectual way of assisting men to attain truth, 
is to remove all obstacles to inquiry, all seductions 
to indolent acquiescence or partial attention to 
evidence, and to lead them to examine thoroughly 
the grounds of any doctrine which they may be 
called upon to investigate. Error universally 
arises from narrow and incomplete views, and is 
least likely to be found amongst men trained to 
exercise their faculties without restraint, and to 
look at a question on all sides. But when govern- 
ments employ functionaries to teach certain fixed 
doctrines, they directly and at once circumscribe 
inquiry as far as in them lies, and thus lessen the 
probability of attaining truth. The teachers are, as 
we have already seen, doomed to remain in one 
unchangeable intellectual condition, to look from 
only one point of view, to pace within a circle that 
cannot be enlarged, and as far as their influence 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 171 

extends, they will keep the people in a similar 
unprogressive state, with an equally bounded power 
of vision. 

Full, rigid, impartial, unfettered examination 
must ever be the way to advance the progress and 
dissemination of knowledge of every kind, moral or 
physical, sacred or profane. Imagine for a moment 
what would ensue if in all the great departments of 
knowledge, governments should endeavour to pro- 
tect and further the interests of truth by laying 
down a string of propositions on each subject, and 
hiring professors to inculcate and enforce them. 
Where under such a system, had it been adopted 
two or three centuries ago, would have been the 
brilliant results of chemical experiment? or the 
wonderful treasures of knowledge extracted from 
the earth by geological research? or the sublime 
discoveries won by the astronomer from the depths 
of the heavens ? 

The absurdity of such a course would be more 
apparent, although not more real, in proportion as 
the departments of knowledge in which it was 
adopted, admitted of certainty in their conclusions, 
and it assuredly would be more harmless. What 
sentiments would be excited by any government 
which should positively enjoin on the mathematical 
professors in its pay, that they should not teach 
any propositions at variance with those of Euclid? 
But the real absurdity would be quite as great 
although not so innocent, if this provident care on 



172 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

the part of government were to extend itself to the 
patronage of any doctrines which might have been 
fixed upon by any body of men, however able and 
eminent, in the disputable and varying sciences of 
medicine, chemistry, and geology. In the first 
case, the protection would be idly superfluous ; in 
the second, by raising up a strong interest against 
farther inquiry, it would be pernicious in proportion 
as it proved effectual, because every science the 
investigation of which by those who apply them- 
selves to it, has not yet produced unanimity, is 
either erroneous in its conclusions or imperfect in 
its developement, and a comparison of the dis- 
cordant opinions arising in different minds from the 
study of it is essentially necessary to remove those 
errors of fact, of reasoning, or of exposition by 
which unanimity is precluded. 

It will scarcely be urged against this repre- 
sentation that the few individuals who are at any 
time entrusted with the powers of government, 
have peculiar facilities for arriving at truth. In no 
department of knowledge except that connected 
with their office, can this be pretended with the 
slightest verisimilitude. On the contrary, from the 
circumstance of their attention being engrossed by 
the important and appropriate objects of protecting 
person and property, and the thousand incidents 
thence arising, they are in a great measure dis- 
qualified for determining truth in other matters. 
The absorption of the feelings and faculties by one 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 173 

class of interesting subjects, necessarily precludes 
the highest degree of fitness for judging of others. 
Such a degree of aptitude for forming a sound judg- 
ment on any set of questions, can be the fruit of 
nothing but particular devotion to them under the 
indispensable conditions of perfect freedom of ex- 
amination and exemption from extrinsic bias. But 
suppose the most favourable case ; suppose that the 
few persons wielding the authority of the state, 
have not ventured to ^ on any doctrines as true, 
without the aid of the most learned men. These 
men have been assembled for the purpose, have 
investigated, have deliberated, have determined, 
and finally presented the government with a set of 
conclusions in their judgment indubitably true. 
These are adopted by the state, and professors are 
paid for teaching them. Now then, it may be said, 
the objection that the government itself cannot 
determine truth, is got quit of: it calls in proper 
assistance, it brings together the ablest men, and 
obtains a result if not absolutely without error, 
yet more accurate than could be obtained in any 
other way. 

It may, indeed, be at once admitted, that at any 
given moment in any department of knowledge, the 
conclusions of the ablest men who have made it 
their peculiar study under perfect freedom of in- 
quiry, and totally uninfluenced by either hopes or 
fears, are far more likely to be correct than the 
opinions of the multitude ; and that if the doctrines 



174 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

agreed upon by an assembly of such eminent men, 
perfectly unshackled in their deliberations and un- 
biassed by professional interests, could be sub- 
stituted for the prevalent notions in the minds of 
the people, the cause of truth would be advanced. 
But this admission will not avail the defenders of 
fixed doctrines. Such an assembly has never yet 
been seen, and to be of the required use must be in 
perpetual session. Amongst a race of inquisitive but 
fallible beings, knowledge is necessarily progressive. 
The opinions of the ablest men, if such men could be 
assembled in the way described, might be nearer ap- 
proximations to truth at the moment than those of 
the people at large, but might possibly be shown to 
be erroneous or defective in the succeeding age, or 
even the succeeding year. By fixing, therefore, 
once for all on such opinions to be taught without 
deviation, by professors salaried for the purpose, a 
government not gifted with infallibility, or unable 
to call in the assistance of men who are, would be 
unavoidably expending its resources in the main- 
tenance and propagation of error. 

As the only way, then, to obviate these con- 
sequences, the assembly must, as already intimated, 
continue in perpetual session, or be re-constructed 
at short intervals. It must be constantly inquiring ; 
keeping up with the advances of knowledge in other 
quarters ; receiving freely the light directed by 
other sciences upon that to which its supervision is 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 175 

limited ; and modifying accordingly the propositions 
to be publicly taught. 

On this plan, undoubtedly, a great part of the 
objections applying to the actual system would 
vanish ; but it would only change the character of 
the difficulties in which a government would be 
plunged by undertaking to determine and to pro- 
pagate truth: and as such a project has never been 
seriously proposed, it is not necessary to dwell on 
the obvious reasons which render it impracticable. 

Nor is any such providential care and contrivance 
on the part of a government at all necessary or 
useful. Without this cumbrous and costly ma- 
chinery, under the simple system of non-inter- 
ference as to results, the ablest men of the age are 
in perpetual session as truly as they can ever be, 
canvassing the most difficult questions, devoting 
themselves to the most arduous researches, and 
sedulously working their way to truth. 

Against this view of the subject, it may perhaps 
be alleged " that it proceeds on the supposition that 
knowledge of all kinds is necessarily progressive, 
whereas it is plain that true propositions cannot 
alter : they may have other propositions, true or 
false, added to them, but they remain unaffected 
themselves. Now, if such true propositions are 
adopted by the state, they may be more certainly 
established in the minds of men, and more exten- 
sively disseminated than if they were left to make 
their own way without protection or patronage." 



176 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 

This argument, however, takes for granted that the 
whole difficulty — the difficulty of determining truth 
— has been overcome. No doubt there are propo- 
sitions, which being perfectly true, are unsuscep- 
tible of alteration ; but it is obvious, that before 
they can be adopted by the state, they must be 
found out and discriminated from such as are false. 
Besides, they may be true, but fall short of the 
whole truth ; they may form only part of a series 
of propositions, and convey even a false impression, 
till the complete series has been brought to light ; 
or they may be true only under certain conditions, 
liable to alter. Hence the knowledge of the subject 
to which they relate is progressive from the very 
nature of the human mind, or of the objects of its 
cognizance ; and the question is, whether or not the 
discovery of new truths, and the disentangling of 
known truths from the errors with which they are 
complicated, are best effected by unfettered inves- 
tigation, or by the state stepping in at some point 
in the progress, pronouncing authoritatively that 
the ultimate goal has been reached, and employing 
functionaries to teach the doctrines thus decisively 
fixed, as by an enchanter's wand, in the particular 
form and attitude which they may have happened 
to assume at the moment the decree was uttered. 

This seems to have been actually attempted in 
jurisprudence by Justinian, after the promulgation 
of his celebrated collection. " He entirely forbade," 
says Savigny, " the rise of a new jurisprudential 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 177 

literature for the future. Only Greek translations 
of the Latin text, and (by way of mechanical aid) 
short sketches of the contents of the title, were to 
be allowed; if any book, properly so called, any 
commentary on these laws, were written, it was to 
be destroyed, and the author subjected to the 
punishment inflicted on forgery." " One thought," 
he continues, " lay at the bottom of all these edicts; 
viz., that this selection from the legal science and 
wisdom of former ages was adequate to all the 
wants of society, and could only be impaired by any 
new work."* 

In the whole of Justinian's proceeding, we may 
observe the identical course pursued which we have 
been here contending against. He employed the 
ablest jurists he could find to extract the necessary 
and useful matter from the whole mass of existing 
documents on the subject ; he then stereotyped it as 
the perfection of wisdom, from which all deviation 
would be an evil ; he appears to have provided the 
schools of law with a new plan of instruction, by 
which to teach these immutable precepts ; and he 
visited all commentary, all discussion of the justice 
or policy of his code, with criminal punishment. 
" The fundamental idea," adds the writer already 
quoted, " which prompted it, is in fact the same 
self-delusion which, deeply rooted in human nature, 
is continually recurring in every part cf the domain 

* See Fragments from German Authors, translated by Mrs. 
Austen, p. 169. 

N 



178 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

of opinion, and especially in the religious part : i. e., 
we believe ourselves permitted to impose on others, 
as exclusively right and authoritative, that par- 
ticular formula of thought which we have con- 
structed by the honest and conscientious exertion 
of our own powers, thus, as we think, for ever 
banishing error."* 

All such attempts to banish error can serve but 
to retain it. The only useful office which the pre- 
scribed dogmas can perform, will be to stand like 
so many immoveable landmarks indicating to the 
eyes of future generations how far the tide of 
human progress has swept beyond the limits im- 
posed by human presumption. 

The objections here stated to the system of pre- 
appointed conclusions have now in most cases their 
full weight. In no departments of knowledge (with 
few exceptions) do governments in the present day, 
having any pretensions to be called free, ever at- 
tempt to bind down those persons whom they em- 
ploy in the capacity of teachers to certain fixed 
doctrines, whether the latest results of inquiry, or 

* " It is the first care of a reformer" says Gibbon with 
grave sarcasm, " to prevent any future reformation. To main- 
tain the text of the Pandects, the Institutes, and the Code, the 
use of cyphers and abbreviations was rigorously proscribed, and 
as Justinian recollected that the perpetual edict had been buried 
under the weight of commentators, he denounced the punishment 
of forgery against the rash civilians who should presume to 
interpret or pervert the will of their sovereign." — Decline and 
Fall, chap. 44. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 179 

such as were propounded and settled in an age of 
comparative ignorance. 

Such a course could not conduce to the general 
attainment of truth by the people, but in whatever 
department of knowledge it were adopted, would 
unavoidably disseminate and perpetuate error.* 

But were it even admitted that the doctrines so 
selected would in all likelihood be true, this system 
of maintaining and propagating them would still 
(we must not forget) be open to the insurmount- 
able objection already urged, that it interfered with 
that personal duty of inquiry, obligatory on indi- 
viduals, which the state is at all times bound to 
respect. 

It must be recollected that the duty which pre- 
sents itself to be performed by any one whose 
situation calls him to inquiry is simply honest and 
diligent examination, and that to draw him from 
this course by an offer of advantages even on the 
side of what the offerer conceives to be truth, is to 
seduce him from the proper discharge of a task of 
the highest moral obligation, as well as to place him 
in an imperfect intellectual condition in relation to 
the subject. It is impossible to maintain both that 
it is incumbent on a man to conduct an examina- 
tion impartially, and that it is right in other men, 
singly or associated, to present inducements which 
shall influence him to do it partially. Such in- 

* See Appendix, Note C. 
N 2 



180 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

ducements, it is almost needless to remark, operate 
precisely in the same way whether offered by indi- 
viduals or by the state ; and the same principles of 
morality apply to both alike, and with equal force. 

When we reflect,, too, that the duty of inquiry is 
in many cases, and especially in those cases in 
which governments are apt to interfere, a direct 
obligation to the Almighty Author of our being, 
the attempt of any human creature, armed with 
what authority soever^ to discourage or prevent or 
pervert the performance of that duty, becomes a 
procedure of even awful presumption.* 



Subsection II. 

Emijloying Force, 

We have next to examine the third method 
which may be adopted by governments with a view 
to assist the people in attaining truth ; namely, re- 
pressing by force all doctrines at variance with such 
as have been prescribed by authority ; in a word, 
persecution for opinions, that eternal blot on the 
reputation of humanity, which it is difficult to men- 
tion without an indignation inconsistent with a dis- 
passionate survey of its effects.* This must, in a 
greater or smaller degree, always prevail where 
emolument or distinction is held out for teaching 

* See Appendix, Note D. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 181 

or attends the profession of prescribed doctrines, 
inasmuch as the loss of advantages in possession 
has all the effect of a positive penalty on the parties 
subject to it. 

When we were pointing out in a former part of 
this treatise the violations of duty in connection 
with the pursuit of truth observable amongst indi- 
viduals, the consideration of the particular trans- 
gression now before us was postponed (with the 
view of avoiding repetitions) to the present chapter, 
as its more appropriate place. As all that can 
be said of persecution when it is the work of 
government will apply with little modification to 
such forms as it commonly assumes in private 
life, the separate consideration of the latter became 
needless. Penalties applied to opinions do not, 
any more than rewards, depend for their effects 
on the agency through which they are adminis- 
tered ; nor is their rigour uniformly greater when 
imposed by the state. The persecution inflicted by 
society itself, or by its individual members, is some- 
times equal in atrocity to any which proceeds from 
the hand of power.* 

It may also be here recalled to the reader's at- 
tention, that although persecution has been the 
most frequently and extensively employed in the 
support of theological doctrines, the same brute 
violence has been extended to other departments 

* For proofs of this, see Note E. in Appendix. 
N 3 



182 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

of knowledge. Thus to take an example, which 
happens to be at hand, from the history of France. 
In 1624, at the request of the University of Paris, 
and especially of the Sorbonne, persons were for- 
bidden by an arret of parliament, " on pain of death, 
to hold or teach any maxim contrary to ancient 
and approved authors, or to enter into any debate 
but such as should be approved by the doctors of 
the faculty of theology." By the same arret several 
persons who had composed and published theses 
against the doctrine of Aristotle, were either repri- 
manded or banished.* 

The fate of the celebrated Eamus, too, in the 
preceding century, is a well known instance of the 
virulence of persecution against all who called in 
question the infallibility of Aristotle. His writings 
were prohibited and ordered to be burnt, and he 
himself forbidden to teach. 

In examining this method of forcible suppression 
by the same tests as have been applied to the me- 
thod of promoting the cause of truth by the em- 
ployment of teachers, it seems almost ludicrous to 
enter upon a formal proof that repressing opinions 
by violence, so far from assisting inquiry, must pre- 
vent the people from discharging the duty of a full 
and impartial investigation into the subject to which 
such opinions relate. It is, nevertheless, worth 
while to trace the way in which in relation to the 

* See D'Alembert on the Abuse of Criticism in Religion. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 183 

pursuit of truth, it operates on the mind, conduct, 
and condition, of a people who are unfortunate 
enough to be placed in such a state of intellectual 
slavery. 

Forcible suppression not only takes away the 
opportunity and means of inquiry from the com- 
munity at large, but destroys or vitiates the na- 
tural motives to inquire. There can be no doubt 
that as rewards encourage a partial attention to 
evidence in favour of those doctrines for the pro- 
fession of which they are bestowed, so the opposite 
treatment — persecution — has, to a large extent, the 
effect of inducing mankind to shun the persecuted 
doctrines, and the arguments in their support. The 
lovers of sympathy who shrink from disapproba- 
tion, — the worldly who are alive to profit or pleasure 
but indifferent to truth, — the indolent and supine 
who do not greatly concern themselves about any 
opinions so long as their ordinary course of life is 
suffered to run smoothly, are all deterred by a fear 
of consequences from attending to doctrines which 
can bring nothing but discredit and danger on their 
votaries. They are frightened from what is really 
their imperative duty. With bolder dispositions it 
is otherwise. When persecution is let loose upon 
society without being pushed to absolute exter- 
mination, the effect upon the strong-minded and 
energetic is to rouse the spirit of resistance ; and 
this is especially the effect on every one who suffers 

n 4 



184 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

in his own person. His passions are stimulated 
against his oppressors, his mind is thrown into the 
attitude of defiance and contention, and instead of 
simply seeking for what is true, his whole soul is 
bent on detecting the errors of his antagonists, and 
providing himself with every possible argument on 
his own side. He grasps not at truth, but at the 
means, whatever they may be, of self-defence, and 
at the power of annoyance. Provoked to a keen 
scrutiny, he enters upon it without any adequate 
sense of the real obligation under which he lies, 
and in a state of mind far from being favourable to 
stern impartiality of investigation. 

This is true, even of that minor species of per- 
secution which consists in debarring dissentients 
from certain rights and privileges, or exacting de- 
clarations of faith, or requiring conformity to re- 
pulsive ceremonies. Many find themselves, from 
rank or birth or station, in this vexatious position 
in society ; and the consequent irritation and sense 
of injustice sharpen their perspicacity to all the 
valid arguments of their own party, and to the 
weak points of the system which degrades itself by 
annoying them with needless disabilities and fruit- 
less exactions. 

Thus, in deterring from inquiry, on the one 
hand, and perverting the spirit of it, on the other, 
persecution is inimical alike to the means and 
to the motives for performing the great duty 
under our consideration. It is superfluous to enter 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 185 

at greater length on the consequences flowing in 
this particular direction from the forcible suppres- 
sion of opinions ; but a remark before suggested, 
presses again irresistibly on the mind. In most 
cases where this kind of interference takes place, 
the duty of investigation is a direct obligation to 
the Supreme Being ; and if it is awfully presump- 
tuous in any fallible mortal to prevent or pervert 
the fulfilment of so sacred a duty, by holding out 
to his fellow-creatures the temptation of benefit, 
what must be the insane arrogance of him who 
seeks to accomplish the same mischievous purpose 
by the infliction of misery ? 

"It is unconsciousness alone" (to borrow the 
language of a work before referred to) " or an im- 
perfect sense of the real character of his conduct, 
which redeems it from the blackest guilt. We 
should otherwise sink confounded at the audacious 
wickedness of that man who dared to intermeddle 
by pains and penalties of whatever degree or what- 
ever kind, with the solemn duty of human beings 
to their Maker, and with the jurisdiction of their 
Omniscient Judge."* 

Let us next examine how far the forcible sup- 
pression of opinions will stand the test of the second 
principle. 

Persecutors, it is certain, how exempt soever they 

* Letters of an Egyptian Kafir, p. 120. 



186 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

may have been from any such notion as that of 
promoting the duty of inquiry, have often laboured 
under the delusion, that they were assisting the 
people in the other object, the attainment of truth ; 
they have actually believed that they were pro- 
moting the prevalence of sound and accurate opi- 
nions by preventing the free utterance of thought 
and communication of intelligence. The infatu- 
ation seems a strange one; but it has undoubtedly 
prevailed, and still continues amongst many who 
would not willingly be classed among the weak 
and the ignorant. It is scarcely necessary to enter 
here upon the proof — a proof already anticipated 
in the course of the preceding discussions — how 
effectually these deluded men were doing the con- 
trary; how certainly, as far as their efforts were 
not defeated, they were engaged in fixing mankind 
in darkness and error. At this stage of our dis- 
sertation, it must be abundantly plain that in pro- 
portion as persecution for opinions is successful, 
it retards the progress of truth by precluding the 
interchange of knowledge, the emulous scrutiny of 
error, the quick comparison of results, and the 
thorough investigation of the processes by which 
they are attained. It is a brute obstacle, re-plunging 
the human race, as far as its power extends, into 
the disadvantages of that condition in which the 
physical means of general mental intercourse were 
unknown. 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 187 

" Every species of intolerance," says an eminent 
writer, " which enjoins suppression and silence, 
and every species of persecution which enforces 
such injunctions, is adverse to the progress of truth ; 
forasmuch as it causes that to be fixed by one set 
of men, at one time, which is much better, and 
with much more probability of success, left to the 
independent and progressive inquiries of separate 
individuals. Truth results from discussion and 
from controversy ; is investigated by the labours and 
researches of private persons. Whatever, there- 
fore, prohibits these, obstructs that industry and 
that liberty which it is the common interest of 
mankind to promote."* 

But happily such intolerance carries with it, in 
the reaction which, as already shown, it usually 
calls forth, some compensation for the injuries in- 
flicted by it on the cause of truth. When this 
monstrous practice is not pushed to extremity, — 
where its merciless designs cannot be carried into 
complete effect, — where it is mitigated by the ex- 
istence of large bodies who resist it, — where it is 
therefore only partial and intermittent, and is con- 
stantly denounced and defied, it is apt, as we have 
seen, not only to sharpen the sight and strengthen 
the convictions of its victims, but to shake existing 
prejudices in the community by the examination it 

* Moral Philosophy, book vi. chap. 10. 



188 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

provokes, and to extend the influence of the doc- 
trines against which it is levelled. 

Seldom, indeed, is the exciting effect of such in- 
tolerance confined to those on whom it personally 
falls. The records of the world sufficiently attest that 
persecution awakens the attention of parties who are 
not immediately interested, to questions otherwise 
not likely to attract their notice, and leads to such 
trains of reflection as silently sap, if they do not 
forcibly subvert, the foundations of prejudice. Both 
sympathy and curiosity are roused; the fate of 
the victim is commiserated; the opinions which 
have drawn down vengeance upon him are scru- 
tinized, and the issue frequently is, that they 
establish themselves in the heart and in the under- 
standing of the inquirer. 

Such results, although they constitute no merit 
on the part of the persecutor, must be allowed, in 
whatever degree they take place, to lessen the ef- 
fectiveness of intolerance in checking the progress 
of knowledge. After every possible alleviation, 
however, from energies roused, opposition pro- 
voked, and curiosity awakened, there is still a large 
residuum of evil. It is the very essence of perse- 
cution, in proportion as it prevails, to injure the 
cause of truth, and therefore of human happiness, 
by preventing the utterance of opinions ; thus cir- 
cumscribing the number of inquirers, insulating 
their thoughts, and, as far as its power reaches, 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 189 

condemning man, with indefinite capabilities of im- 
provement by intercourse with his species, to that 
incapacity of communicating and transmitting his 
impressions which is the natural doom of the 
brute. 



190 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



CHAP. VII. 



CONCLUSION. 



The views which have now been presented of the 
duty of inquiry essentially differ, it must be con- 
fessed, from the opinions and practices of mankind 
in general. 

The state of society at present on this great 
subject, it is not too harsh to say, is a state of bar- 
barism. Whoever looks abroad must admit, that 
in the most enlightened countries existing in the 
world, gross ignorance of the duties of man to 
God, and of man to man, in relation to the pursuit 
of truth, abounds. In this vital matter, no where 
is that conduct which is really virtuous regarded 
with approbation, — no where is that which is really 
vicious condemned : there is no well-directed sensi- 
bility ; no nice discernment ; no correct appreciation 
of merit ; no consistent adherence even to admitted 
principles : honesty of inquiry is subverted by temp- 
tation, or overwhelmed with disgrace and persecu- 
tion ; while unenlightened or criminal acquiescence 
is fostered and recompensed. 

The best wish that can arise in the heart of any 
lover of his species is, that this deplorable condition 



ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 191 

of humanity may be relieved ; the best mental 
change that can happen to mankind is an enhance- 
ment of their intellectual discrimination, and a 
revolution in their moral sentiments, in regard to 
the pursuit of truth. 

If any one should ask how such a change is to be 
brought about, there appears to be only one answer. 
It can be accomplished by no magic. It must be 
effected by repeated discussions, by bringing the 
necessary distinctions frequently into view, by an 
earnest endeavour to shake off error, clear up ob- 
scurity and disentangle confusion, and by holding 
up our well-considered conclusions on the subject 
before the eyes of our fellow- creatures. These are 
the appointed and appropriate means by which only 
we can purposely hasten a revolution from error to 
truth in the opinions of mankind, and in the prac- 
tices founded upon them. 

With such views the present work has been 
written. To contribute in some measure, however 
small, to the accomplishment of these noble ends, it 
is now sent forth to the world. The rigid consist- 
ency with which it aims to apply in every direction 
the great principles of morality connected with the 
pursuit of truth, may be expected to draw down on 
its doctrines all the ill-will which ignorance and 
bigotry will dare to manifest ; but, on the other 
hand, it is not too much to hope that the same 
feature will insure it a candid, if not a cordial, 



192 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

reception from the real lovers of truth and the best 
friends of humanity. In bringing it to a close, the 
writer cannot but feel the conscious satisfaction of 
having (however inefficiently) laboured in single- 
ness of spirit for an object of inestimable value. 



ESSAY 



PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



195 



ESSAY 



ON THE 



PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



PART I. 

A. I am glad that we have disengaged ourselves 
from the company, as I am not altogether satisfied 
with the opinions you have been expressing on the 
character and condition of mankind. They are too 
disheartening. 

N. Are they true? That is the only inquiry 
worthy of a rational being. 

A. When I say they are too disheartening, I 
mean that they go beyond the truth in the low 
estimate which they exhibit of human nature. In 
the present day, I should hardly contest any opinions 
on any other ground. 

N. After all, what have I said? I have said, 
and I repeat, that when we look back into the 
history of the human race we can scarcely help feel- 

o 2 



196 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

ing ashamed that we belong to it. Man is an animal 
in a very slight degree rational by nature. It seems 
to require ages upon ages to bring the race to any 
thing like a state of reason — a state where prejudice 
and passion are subordinate to the understanding, 
where man controls the blind impulse of the present 
by a view of the future, and distinctly perceives his 
relative position in the universe. It is certain that 
mankind have hitherto never reached such a state. 
Let any one look around him, and what does he 
observe ? A few minds perhaps capable of raising 
themselves into the pure atmosphere of truth, of 
emancipating themselves from the domination of 
mere instinct, of expatiating through the moral and 
material would with full liberty of intellect, and of 
appreciating the exact relation in which they stand 
to the existences around them ; but the majority — 
nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand — the 
slaves of prejudice and the dupes of passion, in- 
flicting misery upon themselves and others from gross 
ignorance of the real tendencies of action and the 
rational object of existence ; shrinking from truth 
as from a spectre ; frightened by imaginary terrors ; 
incapable of pursuing more than one step of argu- 
ment, yet pertinacious in their own infallibility; 
humbling themselves in the dust as unworthy to 
approach the God whom they tremble to think of, 
while they confess his unbounded benevolence, yet 
assuming their actions to be of such immense im- 
portance to him as to require the discipline of 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 197 

eternity at his hands. The meanness of men's rea- 
soning powers in general is almost incredible. 
Locke, if I mistake not, terms a man who can ad- 
vance two steps in reasoning a man of two syl- 
logisms. There are few such to be found. The 
majority of mankind are men of one syllogism, or of 
less. The faculty of taking two steps in reasoning 
without assistance — leading strings — is rare : that 
of taking three belongs to one in an age. It stamps 
a man as the wonder of his day. 

A. Yet with these mean understandings, these 
limited faculties, how much has the human race 
accomplished ? You must admit, that men in the 
present day are superior, wonderfully superior, in 
knowledge and wisdom to their progenitors three 
thousand or even three hundred years ago ; that 
they have discarded some methods of rendering 
themselves miserable, and opened a few fresh springs 
of happiness. In a word, there has been an advance 
in the discrimination of good and evil. You will 
not contend that men are incapable of progressive 
improvement, chained for ever like the brutes to 
the circle of individual attainment, doomed genera- 
tion after generation to commence at one point and 
to tread the same round. No! human improve- 
ment, thank God, admits of successive advances; 
each generation starts from the ground at which 
the last had expended its strength in arriving ; and 
I will venture to say, that this single circumstance 
is sufficient to carry the race to a degree of know- 

o 3 



198 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

ledge which it is impossible for us to conceive. Oh ! 
that I could live to see the results of another century 
of progression. 

N. The principle of the progressive improvement 
of mankind, and the consequences resulting from it, 
I acknowledge as well as yourself. It was implied 
indeed in my assertion, that it required ages upon 
ages to bring the race to any thing like a state of 
rationality; an assertion, which, while it admits 
the tendency to improvement, certainly encourages 
no very sanguine expectations of the rapidity of the 
progress. In our anticipations on this point we 
differ. When I look back on the past, or around 
me on the present, I cannot help feeling convinced, 
that if men are to advance, as I think they inevitably 
must, it will be by a very slow march. There are 
a thousand obstacles in the way. It is but a poor 
eulogy on human capabilities, that mankind have 
been four or five thousand years in attaining to 
their present partial and imperfect civilisation, 
which, extolled as it generally has been, is scarcely 
entitled to the appellation of semi-barbarism. If we 
are to be guided by experience, if we are to expect 
hereafter only what we have found in the past, our 
anticipations of the rapidity of future improvement 
will not be very extravagant. 

A. Consider the wars and disorders which have 
heretofore constantly checked the career of civilisa- 
tion. But for the madness of ambition, how far it 
would have already advanced ! 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 199 

N. These wars and disorders were the necessary 
consequences of those narrow faculties, that inca- 
pacity of reasoning, that blindness to their real 
interests, which I charge on the human race. To 
say in defence of human nature, that it would have 
improved faster had not these things happened, is 
only to affirm, that if it had been endowed with 
superior sense, it would not have exhibited so much 
folly. 

A. There is one thing, however, which you must 
allow to be much in favour of those anticipations 
which look for a more rapid advance in future than 
has hitherto been experienced — the invention of 
printing. 

N. That indeed is the noblest acquisition of 
science : it is the impregnable fortress of civili- 
sation; no political changes, no physical vicissi- 
tudes, no mutation short of the complete extinction 
of mankind, can henceforth ever restore the empire 
of the world to ignorance. But admitting all the 
benefits of this invention, it is not in the nature of 
the human mind to advance with rapidity. The 
onward strides of improvement may be sure, but 
they will be slow. Genius may burst away from 
the steady march of the race, and penetrate into 
regions which it will be the work of future gene- 
rations completely to explore; but all its energy 
will not suffice to drag on the main body faster than 
the regular pace to which the nature of its powers 
inevitably confine it. 

o 4 



200 ESSAY ON THE PKOGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

A. You appear to forget, that as by the press 
the cultivation of knowledge extends itself over 
greater numbers, a greater portion of talent will 
be brought out ; prejudices will give way in a 
shorter time, and improvements be adopted with 
less reluctance. Consider how rapid has been the 
progress of science within the last fifty years, 
compared with an equal term during the middle 
ages. 

N. Of physical science it is true. It labours 
under a part only of those obstructions which im- 
pede the science of human nature. Yet even here 
we may mark several of those impediments which 
doom the species to a tardy progression ; — the dul- 
ness and inertness of the faculties to discover truth, 
the interests arrayed against its reception, the diffi- 
culty of sundering the established bonds of mental 
association. Besides, there is a puny sort of self- 
love in every department of knowledge, which de- 
sires the prevalence and stability of opinions be- 
cause they are its opinions. It cannot find in its 
heart to fancy itself at all in error. Instead of 
wishing for the progress and spread of truth, how- 
ever subversive of established doctrines, and that 
mankind should be continually detecting their errors 
and adding to their acquirements, instead of ex- 
ulting at the prospect which the future presents of 
receding darkness and advancing light, this con- 
temptible selfishness would have the world to stand 
still for ever at the point which itself has attained, 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 201 

and poises its own gratification against the compre- 
hensive interests of mankind, its own shallow pre- 
tensions against the growing science of the age, 
and the intellect of myriads of unborn generations. 
It would bind down all the great spirits which are 
yet to advance the happiness and elevate the dig- 
nity of man to its own blind dogmas and narrow 
sphere of vision, and permit no other intellectual 
movement in the world than an approximation to 
those opinions which itself has chanced to adopt. 

A. You are severe. 

N. Severe ! Would it not exhaust the patience of 
the meekest philosopher — a designation to which 
I have no pretensions — to see men who have pos- 
sessed themselves of the established quantum of 
information constantly parading it as the ne plus 
ulfra of knowledge, and stifling or attempting to 
stifle every symptom of improvement lest their 
own personal consequence should be scratched ? 

A. I am perfectly aware of the extensive preva- 
lence of the feelings you describe,, which, joined to 
the disinclination, perhaps disability, that every 
man has to enter into trains of ideas totally at 
variance with his habitual modes of thinking, pro- 
tract the reign of error even where interest is 
not engaged in its support. The conduct of the 
medical men in relation to Harvey's discovery is a 
notorious instance in point.* But these obstacles 
give way. 

* See Appendix, Note F. 



202 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

N. True. Men die off; and they are succeeded 
by others, whose minds are imbued with truer prin- 
ciples, and who do not feel their reputation pledged 
against improvement. This, however, is a slow 
process. By your own showing, a prejudice ex- 
posed as false can perish only with the generation 
to which it adheres. A rapid advance truly, when 
every step of improvement requires at least an 
age ! 

A. We have instances, nevertheless, in which 
discoveries have met with a pretty general recep- 
tion in their own times ; those of modern che- 
mistry, for instance. 

N. Yet Priestley could not part with the doc- 
trine of phlogiston. As he was a man who held 
his opinions with less than common pertinacity, an 
inquirer open to conviction to the day of his death 
— not one of those who early in life packet up 
their miserable stock of knowledge and label it 
complete — his is a striking instance how tena- 
ciously a theory once received adheres to the un- 
derstanding. I grant, however, that physical science 
advances more rapidly, and disseminates its im- 
provements with more ease, than moral and poli- 
tical knowledge. It would seem that just in pro- 
portion as knowledge is unimportant it meets with 
a readier reception. 

A. Do you really intend to insinuate that che- 
mistry, and the other physical sciences, are unim- 
portant ? Call to mind the power which they have 



ESSAY ON THE PEOGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 203 

given to man over nature — how well they have 
answered Lord Bacon's description of the rational 
end of knowledge. 

N. I do not call these pursuits unimportant, ex- 
cept comparatively ; but I maintain that they are 
incalculably inferior in their effects upon human 
happiness to those sciences which explore the na- 
ture of" man and the tendencies of action, and 
which in the present day, notwithstanding the cir- 
cumstances which force them in some degree on 
general reflection, are disgracefully neglected. 

A. Not all. The science of Political Economy 
has surely received its due share of attention. Some 
of the first intellects of modern times have fixed 
their grasp upon it. 

N. True. This is an exception, a glorious ex- 
ception ; and if any thing could render me more 
sanguine in my anticipations of political meliora- 
tion, it would be the progress of this science, the 
irresistible manner in which it has insinuated itself 
into our councils and moulded our policy. Twenty 
or thirty years ago the doctrines of Adam Smith 
were apparently a dead letter ; his book was con- 
sidered by that sapient race, the practical men, as 
full of Utopian dreams. Pitt did not fully com- 
prehend it, and Fox declared it past understand- 
ing.* A first-rate statesman in the present day 



* Mr. Butler in his Reminiscences tells us, that Mr. Fox 
confessed he had never read the Wealth of Nations ; adding, 



204 ESSi\Y ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

would be scouted for equal ignorance. The pre- 
valence of this science will do good. Its severe 
logic, its rigorous requisitions to keep in view the 
meaning of terms, the beautiful dependence of its 
long series of propositions, will accustom men to 
think with more accuracy and precision, while they 
render it even a delightful exercise for a masculine 
understanding. It is a lever which will move the 
world.* 

A. We have here, then, an instance in which a 
science, and that not a physical science, has ad- 
vanced with considerable rapidity. 

N. Pardon me. Political Economy is itself a 
proof that the dissemination of new truths is re- 
stricted by the nature of the human mind to what 
I may venture to term a very moderate rate. It 
was necessary that the contemporaries of Adam 
Smith should be succeeded by another generation 
before his doctrines could prevail, f 



" There is something in all these subjects which passes my com- 
prehension ; something so wide, that I could never embrace 
them myself, or find any one who did." — Vol. i. p. 187. 

* It would be out of place here to do more than protest 
against the disparaging estimate of this "pretended science'''' by 
M. Comte in his Course of Positive Philosophy, a work abound- 
ing in unquestionable ability and disputable doctrines. It is to 
be regretted that previous to being committed to the press it 
was not stripped of the prolixity (in this case most remarkable) 
incident to the form of lectures. An analysis and review of the 
whole by a master-hand would be invaluable to the English 
reader. 

\ " At the interval of half a century, the speculations of this 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE 205 

A. What will you say, however, to the improve- 
ments of Malthus, Say, Ricardo, and others ? These 
have been generally, if not universally, admitted 
by their contemporaries. 

N. Where is your proof ? Not to enter into the 
question, whether the writings of these authors con- 
tain any valuable discoveries, I will venture to 
assert, that the number of people, who fully under- 
stand the true nature of any improvements which 
have been introduced into the science since the 
days of Adam Smith, scarcely amounts to a few 
hundreds. No ! we must all die before these things 
can be generally understood. To comprehend them 
belongs not to our age. 

A. It is my turn to ask for proof. 

N. I refer you to the Reviews. How few of the 
reviewers of Mr. Malthus, M. Say, or Mr. Ricardo* 
have ventured to grapple with their doctrines. To 
enter into reasonings of this kind is a tasking of the 
intellect to which few writers can submit, and 
which would scarcely promote the popularity of a 
periodical work. I refer you to the House of Com- 
mons. Of the number of those who are nightly 

great author have been incorporated in the practices of govern- 
ment. This is the time ichich truth and wisdom have taken to 
travel from the philosopher's study to the senate-house ; and at 
length, after having struggled its way through many obstruc- 
tions, the system of free trade is not only recognised, but is 
begun to be acted upon in the regulation of commercial affairs." 
— Dr. Chalmers on Endowments^ preface, p. xi. 
* See Note G. in Appendix. 



206 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

employed in the discussion of economical topics, 
how many are there fully in possession of even the 
acknowledged principles of the subject ? 

A. Neither the Eeviews nor the House of Com- 
mons can be reasonably expected to be in the very 
van of a difficult science, although doubtless splen- 
did exceptions might be named. But to return to 
your assertion respecting the slow advance of the 
science of man, I am disposed to think it more rapid 
than you are willing to allow, and that the con- 
trary opinion on your part arises from the few 
changes which have appeared in our civil and po- 
litical institutions. Now it is very possible that 
knowledge on a particular subject may have been 
making a great progress for years, and yet not 
have manifested itself in the modification of ex- 
isting establishments. Nay, this seems absolutely 
necessary: for, before any effects can appear in 
practice, it is requisite, in the first place, that the 
discoveries should have been made ; and, secondly, 
that they should have been familiarised by dissemi- 
nation. Hence it is not fair to measure the pro- 
gress of a science at any given period by its practical 
results. 

N. I concede some weight to your remarks. But 
what examples would you select of improvements 
in moral and political science apart from practice ? 

A. After Political Economy, which we have al- 
ready considered, I should adduce Legislation, 
Moral and Intellectual Philosophy generally, and 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OE KNOWLEDGE. 207 

the Philosophy of Physical Inquiry in particular, 
and also the Theory of Language. 

N. I see whom you are aiming at. You doubt- 
less have in your eye Bentham, Dr. Thomas Brown, 
Home Tooke, and a few others. 

A. You might have guessed more widely of the 
truth. I hesitate not to express my conviction, 
that these writers have made important advances 
in their several pursuits. I know the reluctance 
with which their claims are admitted, but I suspect 
that few have taken the trouble to understand their 
works. 

N. So ! You are coming round I perceive to my 
opinion ; for you must acknowledge, that if few 
have taken the trouble to understand writers of 
this class and character, the rate at which their 
discoveries are propagated must be very tardy. 
Believe me, my dear Sir, these men belong to the 
next age. The truths, which they have promul- 
gated, must be familiarised in elementary treatises, 
taught in the schools, wrought into our lighter 
literature, and instilled into the minds of another 
generation before they can be generally received. 
It is a common error to consider the achievements 
of a few great minds as indicative of the state of 
civilisation to which the community at large has 
attained. Men of genius leave their contemporaries 
a century behind. There is an eloquent passage in 
a writer of some celebrity so much to the point, 
that I must beg to quote it in illustration of my 



208 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

views. " We cannot help remarking," says he, 
" what a deception we suffer to pass on us from 
history. It celebrates some period in a nation's 
career as pre-eminently illustrious for magnanimity, 
lofty enterprise, literature, and original genius. 
There was perhaps a learned and vigorous mo- 
narch, and there were Cecils and Walsinghams, and 
Shakespeares and Spensers, and Sidneys and Ra- 
leighs, with many other powerful thinkers and 
actors, to render it the proudest age of our national 
glory. And we thoughtlessly admit on our imagi- 
nation this splendid exhibition as representing, in 
some indistinct manner, the collective state of the 
people in that age. The ethereal summits of a 
tract of the moral world are conspicuous and fair 
in the lustre of heaven, and we take no thought of 
the immensely greater proportion of it which is 
sunk in gloom and covered with fogs. The general 
mass of the population, whose physical vigour, in- 
deed, and courage, and fidelity to the interests of 
the country, were of such admirable avail to the 
purposes, and under the direction of the mighty 
spirits that wielded their rough agency ; this great 
mass was sunk in such mental barbarism, as to be 
placed at about the same distance from their illus- 
trious intellectual chiefs, as the hordes of Scythia 
from the most elevated minds of Athens."* 

A. A noble passage, eloquent in language and 

* Essay on Popular Ignorance, by John Foster, p. 71. 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 209 

felicitous in illustration : but you surely do not re- 
gard it as applicable to modern times ? 

N. I look upon it as a pretty faithful picture of 
the state of things in the present day. He who, 
not content with imposing reports and statistical 
results, comes into actual contact with the real 
body of the people, will find an immeasurable dif- 
ference between the average of their intelligence 
and the luminous and comprehensive views which 
fill the eye of a Bentham or a Brown, or any other 
man of genius whose name may be employed to 
mark the farthest point of intellectual progression. 



210 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OE KNOWLEDGE. 



PART II. 

N. It appears to me, that in our last conversation 
on the progressive improvement of mankind, we 
differed only in regard to its rapidity, you con- 
tending for a much quicker progress than I am 
disposed to anticipate. The difference between us, 
however, scarcely affects any of the important con- 
sequences flowing from the general principle. 

A. Your arguments, although forcibly urged, by 
no means shook the previous conviction of my 
mind; but what are the consequences to which 
you particularly allude? 

N. The most cursory glance at the subject is 
sufficient to suggest a thousand valuable inferences, 
some of them widely at variance with prevalent 
opinions. For instance, if all kinds of knowledge 
necessarily improve, it is vain to look for the 
soundest principles, the deepest insight into nature, 
in our older writers. 

A. That is a conclusion which is certainly little 
accordant with the theories of the day. Even I, 
sanguine as I am of the future, should hesitate to 
accede to it. 

N. The ground of this prepossession in favour 
of old writers is evidently a false analogy, which 
Lord Bacon has well exposed. In every subject 
which admits of an accession of knowledge, the 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 211. 

best writers must be in time superseded. To a 
later age they must often appear tedious, wasting 
their powers on trifles, attempting formally to es- 
tablish what is obviously absurd or what no one 
disputes, or tasking their strength in the prolix 
exposure of fallacies, the true character of which 
may now be shown in a few sentences. Such 
works after a certain period are consulted only on 
account of their reputation, for their style, or for 
the pleasure of tracking the steps of a great mind. 
The works of Bacon and Locke are already be- 
coming instances in point. They are more talked 
of than read ; and if you will pardon a homely ex- 
pression, oftener dipped into than waded through. 

A. We have works, nevertheless, and those not 
works of art, but what in contra- distinction may 
be called works of knowledge, which will not be 
readily superseded. 

N. It would be difficult to name them. I will 
not deny, however, the possibility of a doctrine 
being so concisely and clearly established, that the 
demonstration may never be displaced by a better. 
Even in such cases, the doctrine in process of time 
appears so intuitive as not to require proof. 

A. It seems to be an unavoidable inference from 
your remarks, that the study of old authors is a 
waste of labour. 

N. Much of it is an exhaustion of the strength 
to no purpose. This obsolete learning is well 
enough for minds of a secondary cast, but it only 

p 2 



212 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

serves to hamper the man of original genius. It is 
unwise in such a one to enter very minutely into 
the history of the science to which he devotes him- 
self — more especially at the outset. Let him 
perfectly master the present state of the science, 
and he will be prepared to push it farther while 
the vigour of his intellect remains unbroken ; but 
if he previously attempt to embrace all that has 
been written on the subject, to make himself ac- 
quainted with all its exploded theories and obsolete 
doctrines, his mind will probably be too much en- 
tangled in their intricacies to make any original 
efforts ; too wearied with tracing past achievements 
to carry the science to a farther degree of excel- 
lence. * When a man has to take a leap he is ma- 



* In harmony with the general scope of the observations here 
made, a French writer before cited, M. Comte, has well character- 
ised two modes of exposition (and the same distinction holds good 
in the study as well as in the explanation of science), one the 
historic, the other the dogmatic ; the former presenting a science 
in the order in which it has been brought to its present state, 
the latter presenting it as it would be formed by a mind whose 
intelligence sufficed to take at once a view of the whole. In 
proportion as a science advances, the first method becomes more 
and more impracticable by the long series of intermediate steps 
through which the mind would be dragged ; while on the other 
hand, the second method increases in facility in the same pro- 
portion. Ordinary men (he proceeds to say) could never be 
placed on a level with the actual state of science, brought about 
by the labours of a long line of master-spirits, if every indi- 
vidual had to pass through the successive steps which have been 
necessarily trod by the collective genius of the human race. See 
Cours de Philosophic Positive, tome i. p. 77* 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 213 

terially assisted by stepping backward a few paces, 
and giving his body an impulse by a short run to 
the starting place ; but if his precursory range is 
too extensive, he exhausts his forces before he 
comes to the principal effort. 

A. The general voice is against your doctrine. 
Old authors are universally considered as treasures 
of deep thought, mines of wisdom, from which the 
young aspirant after distinction is recommended to 
extract the ore, which he is to beat out and em- 
bellish for the public use. I think you underrate 
them. 

N. Do not mistake me. I reverence as much as 
any man the great intellects which have been em- 
ployed in raising the structure of science. It is no 
disparagement to the illustrious men of past times, 
that their errors are pointed out, and that shorter 
and easier methods are found of accomplishing that 
which it required all their efforts to effect. With 
intellects far greater perhaps than any subsequent 
labourers in the same cause, they may be surpassed 
in extent and accuracy of knowledge at a later 
period by men of the most limited capacity. Such 
is the necessary condition of human improvement. 
All that an individual can effect is comparatively 
trivial. His powers of original inference are bounded 
to a few steps. The works of one must be elevated 
on those of another. Meanwhile beauty of style, 
elegance of illustration, perspicuity of arrangement, 

p 3 



214 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

and ingenuity of inference — all that constitutes a 
book a work of art — may be imperishable. 

A. Your view of the subject seems to militate 
against all claims to originality. If one man is to 
build on the discoveries of another, his best works 
can only be like stones in the edifice, while it is 
surely the ambition of every man of genius to erect 
a structure of his own. 

N. This notion, that a man should produce some- 
thing exclusively his own, unconnected with any 
thing previously accomplished, in order to entitle 
him to the praise of originality, has given rise to a 
good deal of vain contention about the claims of in- 
dividuals to particular discoveries and inventions. 
A casual expression, a barren assertion, an imper- 
fect and unsteady approximation to an important 
truth, has been singled out to invalidate the just 
pretensions of the man of original genius, who has 
planted a firm foot on ground of which it is possible 
indeed that a glimpse had been previously caught, 
but which had never been actually reached ; and 
who has opened to our delighted minds a vista of 
consequences which seems more like a creation than 
a discovery. Thus the originality of Newton in 
his doctrine of Gravitation has been disputed on 
the ground of some approaches to this principle by 
Hook ; that of Hume, in his views of the relation 
of Cause and Effect, on the strength of expressions 
in sundry writers ; that of Malthus, in his principles 
of Population, on account of some passages in Wal- 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 215 

lace, Stuart, and Smith ; and that of Dalton, in his 
chemical theory of Definite Proportions, in con- 
sequence of an imperfect anticipation of it by Hig- 
gins. The truth is, that the originality demanded 
by such critics is an originality which cannot exist ; 
it is purely chimerical, and the ambition of attaining 
it can lead only to extravagant paradoxes and base- 
less theories. Whoever wishes to be original in the 
only practicable way, must rise from the improve- 
ments of others. A living writer* has well charac- 
terised this originality in the case of the doctrine of 
population, when he remarks that Mr. Malthus took 
an obvious and familiar truth, which till his time 
had been a barren truism, and showed that it teemed 
with consequences. 

A. I acknowledge that he who can do this may 
well be content with himself. 

N. Yet the critics will quote the familiar truth 
to prove that the consequences were not original. 
But this is absurd on any theory but that which 
requires in every invention or discovery a perfect 
insulation from preceding achievements, before it is 
entitled to that praise. The slightest connection 
with what has been previously accomplished seems 
in the eyes of these dreamers to divest it of* this 
character. To trace the way in which it was 
effected, or the steps of the process, is with them 
the same thing as destroying its claims to admi- 

* Mr. De Quincey. 
p 4 



216 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

ration. In contradiction to all this, I will venture 
to affirm that it is invariably owing to the state of 
a science at the time when a man takes it up, that 
he is able to make his peculiar discoveries. Hence 
those fugitive glimpses, those scattered lights, those 
casual touches in writings of the same date. The 
minds of a number of individuals seem to be con- 
temporaneously labouring with obscure intimations 
of the same truth, till in the most vigorous amongst 
them it struggles from its obscurity and bursts into 
day. " The greatest inventor in science," says an 
eminent philosopher, " was never able to do more 
than to accelerate the progress of discovery." * 

A. But surely your representation of the matter 
has a tendency to lessen the merit of invention, or 
at least our admiration of it. 

N. On the contrary, it shows us where admira- 
tion is due, and what are the grounds on which we 
should grant it, as well as explodes the flimsy pre- 
tences on which it is sometimes professed to be 
withheld. What is still better, it exhibits the real 
process of invention and discovery, and proves that 
they must necessarily go on, however slowly, so 
long as there is any thing to invent or discover. 

A. In this point we perfectly agree. Hence the 
folly of shutting the mind to further improvement, 
— of conceiving, as many people are apt to do, that 
they have mastered the sciences once and for ever. 

N. Mastered the sciences ! A man in the present 

* Playfair's Works, vol. ii. p. 52. 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 217 

day with regard to the sciences is something like 
Virgil's boatman, si brachia fovU remisit, he loses 
his place — he is in effect carried backward. There 
is a perpetual necessity for exertion if he would 
maintain his relative position in the world of in- 
tellect ; and from this necessity arises much of that 
hostility to improvement which characterises the 
dull and the indolent. Thus what should yield 
delight proves a source of mortification ; for what 
in reality can be more exhilarating than the thought, 
that thousands of minds are constantly at work upon 
new improvements and discoveries, that every year 
may bring some correction to our errors and solve 
some of our difficulties, and that as long as we live, 
new lights will pour upon our understandings? A 
right view of the subject would show us, that every 
man of genius, of enterprise, and of research, is 
labouring for our gratification, smoothing the path 
for our steps, and illuminating objects to delight 
our vision. When the warm glow of youthful feel- 
ing has passed away, I know of nothing so worthy 
to replace it, nothing so well calculated to relieve 
the insipidity of middle life, as the prospect of con- 
tinual advances in knowledge, inspiring hopes which 
are perpetually gratified and perpetually renewed. 
An adequate view — a deep impression of the pro- 
gressive character of science is utterly inconsistent 
with that overweening confidence which causes a 
man to place his own opinions as the limit of im- 
provement. 

A. If this is preposterous in an individual, it is 



218 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

surely equally so in a body of men. "What then 
shall we say of a set of immutable propositions on 
any subject whatever? — a series of doctrines laid 
down as absolute truths never to be altered? 

N. I should certainly pronounce it a grand mis- 
take in the science of the human mind. There is 
not a single subject which exercises the faculties 
of man that may not be improved — nay, that will 
not be improved — by the efforts of successive 
generations. It would be an unpardonable degree 
of arrogance in an assemblage of the wisest men 
that ever lived, supposing that they could be 
brought together, to circumscribe any subject what- 
ever within the narrow boundaries of their own 
opinions. It would betray a total misconception 
of the relations of the human mind to the objects 
around it. I have contended, that men in the pre- 
sent day are superior in knowledge to their prede- 
cessors ; but on the same grounds those who come 
after us will be superior to the existing generation. 
It is highly probable indeed, how mortifying soever 
the reflection may be to our personal consequence, 
that we in this age are mere barbarians compared 
with the race who shall hereafter fill the earth; 
and surely for us to erect a standard of opinion for 
beings likely to be so infinitely superior to our- 
selves is too absurd to need exposure, and can 
scarcely fail to provoke many a compassionate smile 
in the future ages of the world. 

A. Absurd enough in all conscience. We are too 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 219 

apt, I confess, to consider our own age as en- 
lightened almost to the utmost extent of human 
capacity. When we reflect upon the wonderful 
discoveries of modern astronomy, on the brilliant 
operations of chemical analysis, on the new lights 
darted into the gloom of past ages by geology, on 
the comprehensive truths of political economy, — 
when we survey our ships and our commerce, our 
steam-engines and our gas-lights and balloons, our 
canals and piers and bridges*, — in the exultation 
of having taken a giant-stride, we fancy ourselves 
already arrived at the goal. The truth is, however, 
that all these considerations are but so many argu- 
ments for modesty and diffidence. If the present 
age has excelled those which have preceded it, this 
result is owing to circumstances still in full activity, 
and which will inevitably carry the next generation 
far beyond us. It is often said that we are pre- 
sumptuous in thinking ourselves more knowing 
than our ancestors, but we forget the presumption 
of arrogating a superiority over our successors. 

N. It is curious to speculate on the consequences 
of this inevitable progression. The multiplication 
of books, for instance, will give rise to some sin- 



* To this enumeration (written about twenty years ago) may 
now be added steam-carriages, rail-roads, the daguerreotype, 
and the electrotype : the two former likely to effect an extensive 
revolution in the manners, habits, and tastes of society; the 
two latter, the most beautiful results of science in the present 
century. 



220 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

gular phenomena. What a vast accumulation of 
literature, should the world continue a thousand or 
twenty thousand years longer without a geological 
submersion! What a weight of materials every 
year is adding to the stock of the historian ! In 
process of time it will require the whole life of a 
man to become acquainted with the transactions of 
former ages, and the longest life will be insufficient 
to master the literature of a single country. 

A. It will be the reign of Eetrospective Reviews. 
A thousand years hence the literature of our own age 
may possibly furnish half a dozen nibbles to these 
fishers in the waters of oblivion. The splendour 
of intellect which envelops us will have dwindled 
into a mere luminous point, scarcely making its 
way athwart the intervening space — a star faintly 
visible in the night of ages. How mortifying to 
the personal vanity which makes itself the very sun 
of a system ! But if we indulge in speculations of 
this nature we shall inevitably draw on ourselves 
the imputation of being visionary advocates of the 
perfectibility of man. 

N. Such an imputation will scarcely be fixed on 
me, after what I have said in a former convers- 
ation on the slow progress of the human race. That 
there will be a progress, however, and an incessant 
one, is so far from being a visionary speculation, 
that I scarcely know a proposition which rests on 
a firmer basis. And the particular speculation on 
the future phenomena of literature is equally well 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 221 

founded. It is obvious that the art of printing has 
produced a complete revolution in the world of 
letters during the few centuries which have elapsed 
since its invention : the movement will continue — 
will be accelerated ; the causes are still in activity, 
and acquiring new force. We have merely to re- 
present to ourselves therefore a repetition of what 
has already happened, only on a larger scale and 
with a somewhat more rapid career. Our conclu- 
sions on this subject must be drawn, not from the 
history of antiquity, but from that of modern times. 
Had Greece possessed the art of printing, the story 
of the human race would have been different be- 
yond all conception from what it is. 

A. If it had saved the world only from those 
ages of disputation in which the human mind 
seemed to spin round a circle without a single step 
of advancement, the benefit would have been in- 
valuable. It is useless, however, to imagine what 
might have happened ; a more interesting inquiry is, 
What will the future bring ? Literature, Science, 
Political Institutions, Religion — all must pass 
through various changes, if there is any correct- 
ness in the principle of progressive improvement. 

N. Literature and science we have already ad- 
verted to. A progress in these must be accom- 
panied by progressive changes in our social and 
political institutions.* That they have not arrived 

* " II serait evidemment contradictoire," observes M. Comte 



222 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

at perfection, the slightest glance at the misery 
around us is all that is requisite to prove. The 
supposition that they will not be subject to changes 
would imply, either that while other kinds of know- 
ledge were daily advancing, the science of social 
happiness was as complete as the nature of the 
subject allowed, and therefore susceptible of no 
improvement ; or that the happiness of commu- 
nities admitted of no addition, their misery of no 
diminution, from the most thorough insight into 
the various causes which produced them. The 
history of every country proves that a knowledge 
of these causes is one of the most difficult of ac- 
quisitions; that on no subject is man more easily 
deluded, less capable of extensive views, guilty of 
grosser mistakes, and yet more inveterately per- 
tinacious in thinking himself infallible. Nor is 
there any subject on which the correction of an 
apparently small error has teemed with such im- 
portant benefits to the world. 

A. From all which it most indubitably follows, 
that political knowledge and political institutions 
are predestined to improvement. What a source 
of sad anticipation to a multitude of politicians ! 



in the work already quoted, " de supposer que l'esprit humain, 
si dispose a l'unite de methode, conservat indefiniment pour une 
seule classe de phenomenes sa maniere primitive de philosopher 
lorsqu'une fois il est arrive a adopter pour tout le reste une 
nouvelle niarche philosophique, d'un caractere absolument op- 
pose." — Cours, torn. i. p. 20. See also Note H. in Appendix. 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 223 

N. Already great changes have taken place, as 
any one will own who is at all conversant with the 
history of the past. Greater are in embryo. The 
blind veneration for rank, the feudal feeling, is ob- 
viously on the decline, and it is probable that it 
will be nearly extirpated in the course of ages. 
The tendency of political change is now evidently 
to republicanism ; and it is not unlikely that the 
existing governments of Europe will gradually 
approximate to the form adopted in the United 
States of America. That form is at present un- 
suitable to the feelings and habits of Europeans, 
which still retain a strong tinge of the spirit of the 
middle ages. There are certain principles, how- 
ever, which are making daily advances, and which 
in proportion as they subvert the ancient spirit of 
hereditary attachment, will render it unnecessary 
and substitute a better in its place. Such are the 
principles — that government is for the benefit of 
the whole community; that to ensure the attain- 
ment of this end, the will of the majority ought to 
prevail; that to secure the benefits of government, 
the people must strictly conform to the regulations 
which they themselves have imposed ; and the co- 
rollaries flowing from these propositions. Changes 
of this kind must not be expected too soon. We 
may alter on a sudden the forms of polity, but we 
cannot suddenly transform the spirits of men. This 
is the effect of time, or what is meant by that 
phrase, of innumerable successive circumstances, 



224 ESSAY ON THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

and it cannot be either much accelerated or much 
retarded. The slow progress of mankind is here 
more apparent than anywhere. 

A. From your opinion respecting the tendency 
of political change to republicanism I must dissent ; 
in no instance have we seen this form of govern- 
ment productive of greater advantages than the 
mixed ; and I am strongly inclined to question 
whether any happier expedient can be devised than 
the hereditary descent of power.* 

N. I am not anxious at present to discuss the 
merits of any forms of government. All that I mean 
to contend for is, that whichever is really the best 
must in the natural course of improvement establish 
its claims to preference. Men learn these things 
slowly, but experience must ultimately force them 
upon their understandings. The change in men's 
religious views will also probably be great. As 
mankind learn to reason more justly, they will see 
the absurdity of many of their tenets. They will 

* " It appears to me," says De Tocqueville, " beyond a doubt, 
that sooner or later we shall arrive, like the Americans, at an 
almost complete equality of conditions. But I do not conclude 
from this, that we shall ever be necessarily led to draw the same 
political consequences which the Americans have derived from 
a similar social organisation. I am far from supposing that they 
have chosen the only form of government which a democracy 
may adopt ; but the identity of the efficient cause of laws and 
manners in the two countries is sufficient to account for the 
immense interest we have in becoming acquainted with its effects 
in each of them." — Introduction to Democracy in America, 
p. xxv. 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 225 

discover more and more clearly, that instead of the 
wise and benevolent Author of the Universe, they 
have been worshipping an image in their own minds 
endowed with similar imperfect faculties and pas- 
sions to their own, nay, even invested with prin- 
ciples of action drawn from human nature in its 
rudest state. Men's conception of the Deity can 
never go beyond, although it frequently falls short 
of their moral opinions. He who has a narrow, 
confused, and indistinct view of what is really wise 
and admirable in human qualities, cannot have a 
clear and comprehensive idea of God. Hence, as 
moral knowledge advances, as mankind come more 
and more to fix their approbation on actions ac- 
cording to their actual desert, their conception of 
the Deity will become more refined, more elevated, 
and more worthy of its object. The proper way to 
exalt man's veneration of God is to teach him what 
is really just, benevolent, and magnanimous in his 
own race. It is melancholy to reflect on the sort 
of attributes and actions which are daily ascribed 
to the Supreme Being. 

A. I have frequently been struck with the fact 
to which you have alluded, that men's conception 
of the Deity generally falls short of their moral 
opinions; but I have never been able to account 
satisfactorily for so remarkable a phenomenon. 
How is it, that even in the present day theological 
systems continue to invest the Deity, as you have 
expressed it, with principles of action drawn from 

Q 



226 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

human nature in its rudest state, and long since 
practically exploded in every civilized country ? 

N. The awfulness of the subject combines with 
the interests of men to produce a tardy application 
of their improved knowledge to their conception of 
the Author of the Universe. It is as if they enter- 
tained an obscure and undefined apprehension that 
any alteration in their ideas regarding him would 
not simply be a change in their own minds, but 
would involve a modification of the nature and 
happiness of the Supreme Being himself. The 
veneration which they feel towards their Creator 
diffuses itself over their own dogmas. But your 
question has diverted me from the natural course 
of my remarks. I was going to observe, that man- 
kind will not only necessarily perceive the absurdity 
of many of their tenets, but they will especially 
become sensible of the folly and wickedness of in- 
tolerance, that never-dying worm which preys on the 
vitals of human felicity. I am never so inclined to 
feel contempt for my own species as when I look 
into the history of religious persecution. It pre- 
sents to us a combination of all that is weak with 
all that is wicked in our nature — the senseless ac- 
tivity of an idiot destroying his own happiness, 
with the malignity of. a demon blasting that of 
others. 

A. Language is too feeble to express the deep 
execration which is its just due. But I own I am 
more struck with the extreme folly, the childish 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 227 

weakness, the incapacity of just reasoning, involved 
in the slightest act of intolerance, than with any other 
of its features. In point of mere logic, such an act is 
absolutely disgraceful to the intellectual character 
of any one capable of drawing a single inference. 
Were it not for the sufferings of the victim, it 
would be altogether ludicrous. The puny, pitiful 
attempts at intolerance in our own day are miser- 
ably post-dated — absurd from their pretensions and 
contemptible from their impotence. 

N. With my whole soul I agree with you as to 
the sentiments which these attempts ought to in- 
spire; but I am of opinion that they are not so 
ill-timed nor so impotent as you imagine : in other 
words, I consider that there yet exists a more 
extensive spirit of intolerance than you are aware 
of; subdued indeed from its original savageness, 
but deeply rooted and tenacious. There are also 
to be found more important cases of intolerance 
than your language implies. From all that I have 
myself observed of the spirit of society, I am de- 
cidedly of opinion, that the sympathies of the ma- 
jority of the nation are in almost every case against 
and not in favour of the victim. 

A. I should be pained to believe it. 

N. I am convinced you will find it so ; and this 
brings us again to the point before discussed, the 
over-estimation of the attainments and real civili- 
zation of the present age. The spirit of society on 
this subject may be looked upon as the thermometer 

Q 2 



228 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

of civilization — at least a high degree of what we 
include in that term cannot possibly exist where 
intolerance prevails. The two things are mutually 
destructive. The same remark may be applied to 
a still more enormous evil, or one at least that pre- 
sents itself in greater and more distinct masses — 
war. The existence of war at all is a tremendous 
proof that mankind are not civilized. Again, then, 
we must conclude that we over-estimate our pro- 
gress ; that we are really but a little way removed 
from barbarism, in comparison with the possible 
point at which the race may arrive. And this 
would be a most salutary conviction ; for while it 
would add to our alacrity by teaching us how much 
there was yet to discover, it would abate our pre- 
sumption in the perfection of our present attain- 
ments. If I do not deceive myself, I foresee the 
time (far distant, alas !) when mankind shall awake 
to a full sense at once of their actual imperfections 
and of their capacity for illimitable improvement ; 
when they shall cease to create their own misery, 
and to lavish their admiration on qualities that 
thrive on their ruin ; " when almost all the great 
political wonders, the idols of history, stripped one 
after another of the vain splendour thrown around 
them, will appear nothing more than the frivolous 
and often fatal sports of the infancy of the human 
race." * 

* Rapports du Physique et du Moral de rHomme, par J. G. 
Cabanis, torn. i. p. 340. 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 229 



PAKT III. 

A. In our previous conversations we have touched 
on the present state of society, but only in a general 
way ; and we were chiefly occupied with the pro- 
gress of the human race, and the principles on 
which such a progress might be looked for. I 
should like to hear your sentiments on some other 
features in the intellectual condition of our own 
times. My friend B. here, who differs in his ge- 
neral views from both of us, will assist me in the 
task of contesting any questionable propositions. 

N. The field is wide : we have already endea- 
voured to estimate the point reached in the scale 
of civilization ; what other part of the subject have 
you particularly in view ? 

A. My views have reference chiefly to the state 
of moral and political intelligence and feeling. I 
think, for my own part, that society is in a curious 
condition in these respect. It seems to be labour- 
ing with a thousand incongruous principles and 
opinions. 

N. I perfectly agree with you. When we ex- 
amine the actual condition of society, we find 
amazing discrepancies in moral and political senti- 
ment. We find even great contrariety in the same 
individual. He will be found perhaps, without 

Q 3 



230 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

being aware of it, maintaining two opinions, mu- 
tually repugnant and contradictory; one opinion 
probably the result of instillation by his preceptors ; 
the other his own acquisition from reading or con- 
versation. Now, not being in the habit of deducing 
a series of inferences, not being able to follow out 
any doctrine to its consequences, he is insensible to 
the contrariety existing between them, and perhaps 
would regard you with something like horror if 
you were to attempt to point it out. This is all 
very well, and cannot be avoided where, without 
much precision of ideas, there is any thing like a 
determination of the general intellect to moral and 
political inquiries ; where men's knowledge begins 
to outstrip their prejudices, and yet is not disen- 
tangled from them. The same causes however 
give rise to other moral phenomena, not quite so 
free from culpability. 

A. To what do you allude ? 

N. I allude to the concealment of opinions and 
feelings, to the insincerity, to the conventional si- 
mulation which abound in the present day. Every 
one must be struck with the discordance in tone 
between the sentiments of our literature, of our 
public debates, of our formal documents on the 
one hand, and those heard in private society and 
exhibited in the common habits of life on the other. 
The same individual who has been speaking to the 
popular prejudices of the day in public, will often 
let you see by a sneer or a jest, or at all events by 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 231 

the principles which regulate his daily conduct, 
that he has in reality been playing the actor and 
duping his audience. Hence our literature does 
not present us with the actual sentiments enter- 
tained. There is nothing like general sincerity in 
the profession of opinions. The intellect of the age 
is cowed. 

B. A great part of what appears to be insin- 
cerity may perhaps be ascribed to a want of the 
power to perceive logical inconsistencies, and some 
part to the habit of thoughtlessly expressing in pri- 
vate society opinions not seriously entertained. It 
has been remarked by an able writer, that were we 
to know what was said of us in our absence, we 
could seldom gather the real opinions of the 
speakers : " there are so many things said from the 
mere wantonness of the moment, or from a desire 
to comply with the tone of the company ; so many 
from the impulse of passion, or the ambition to be 
brilliant ; so many idle exaggerations, which the 
heart in a moment of sobriety would disavow ; that 
frequently the person concerned would learn any 
thing sooner than the opinions entertained of him, 
and torment himself, as injuries of the deepest dye, 
with things injudicious perhaps and censurable, but 
which were the mere sallies of thoughtless levity. " # 
A similar observation may be made with regard to 
moral and political opinions. Things are said in 

* Godwin's Inquirer, p. 312. eel. 1823. 
Q 4 



232 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

the social or the listless hour, when the mind re- 
laxes from the tension of steady thought, which 
would be disowned when the intellect had collected 
all its forces, and was calmly and solemnly looking 
at the whole bearings of the subject. Besides, if it 
were not so, I think you judge the matter too 
rigidly. Actual simulation of opinions I will not 
defend ; but surely there is a species of dissimu- 
lation, or (not to use a word with which unfavour- 
able associations are connected) of reserve or sup- 
pression, which far from being culpable may be pru- 
dent and even meritorious, nay, absolutely necessary. 
I think I once heard you assert, that if any man 
were now to promulgate the moral and political 
opinions (could they be known) which will gene- 
rally prevail at the end of two hundred years from 
this time, he would be hooted from society.* In 
this sentiment I do not participate, as I see no 
room for so immense a change as it supposes, but 
on your own grounds a prudent reserve is com- 
mendable. 

N. The sentiment was expressed perhaps too 
broadly, but without pretending to form a conjec- 
ture as to what such future opinions may be, I 
think it substantially correct. I will grant you, 
therefore, that it is prudent in a man to suppress 
any opinions flagrantly hostile to popular preju- 
dice ; but it is not, you will allow, high-minded ; 

* See Appendix, Note I. 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 233 

if it escape our contempt, it is not a species of con- 
duct to raise the glow of enthusiastic admiration, 
to " dilate our strong conception with kindling 
majesty, " and to elevate us for a time at least 
above the dead level of our nature. The poet 
says — 

" Give me the line that ploughs its stately course 
Like the proud swan, conquering the stream by force ;" * 

and I confess my admiration will always follow him 
who boldly breasts the current of popular preju- 
dice, forcing his way by his native energy. Nor 
can I help thinking, that such a man, if he com- 
bined undeviating coolness, moderation, integrity, 
and simplicity of mind, with great intellectual 
powers, would in the end extort the forbearance at 
least of the host of enemies who would rush to the 
encounter from the instinct of fear. 

A. Such conduct would undoubtedly excite the 
admiration of a few, but it would be the destruction 
of the happiness of the individual unless he were 
singularly constituted. It is a fearful thing for any 
man to encounter the execration, or even the tacit 
condemnation, of the society in which he lives. 
And, moreover, it is questionable whether, suppos- 
ing even his sentiments to be true, he would pro- 
mote the cause of truth by such a bold and reckless 
course. For any system of thoughts to be received 

* Cowper. 



234 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

with effect, the minds of the community must be in 
a state of preparation for it. If promulgated too 
early, it is cast back into obscurity by the offended 
prejudices of society, or becomes a prominent object 
against which they are perpetually exasperating 
themselves. It is a light-house amidst the breakers. 
The genius of a Smeaton in philosophy would be 
required to erect an intellectual structure of this 
kind, capable at once of giving intense light, and 
withstanding the moral turbulence by which it 
would be assailed. A premature disclosure of any 
doctrine, you may rest assured, retards its ultimate 
reception. In fact, a forbearance to utter all that 
a man thinks is a species of continence necessary 
throughout the whole progress of civilization; at 
every step the commanding minds of the age being 
in one state, and the feelings and opinions of the 
majority in another directly hostile to it.* 

* " And here may I be permitted to caution my readers 
against the common error of confounding the double doctrine of 
Machiavelian politicians, with the benevolent reverence for 
established opinions manifested in the noted maxim of Fonte- 
nelle, — ' that a wise man, even when his hand was full of truths, 
would often content himself with opening his little finger." Of 
the advocates for the former, it may be justly said, that 'they 
love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil ; * 
well knowing, if I may borrow the words of Bacon, ' that the 
open daylight doth not show the masks and mummeries and 
triumphs of the world, half so stately as candle-light.' The phi- 
losopher on the other hand, who is duly impressed with the 
latter, may be compared to the oculist, who after removing the 
cataract of his patient, prepares the still irritable eye, by the 



ESSAY ON THE PKOGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 235 

B. J cannot exactly see the necessity of a discre- 
pancy of this nature ; but admitting that the com- 
manding intellects of the age must thus differ in 
their views on many points from the bulk of man- 
kind, it by no means follows that all who thus dif- 
fer are to be ranked in that class. On the con- 
trary, I should be inclined to say, that to be widely 
at variance with our own age is in most cases a 
mark of unsound understanding; and this seems 
more especially to follow (turning to N.) from your 
principles ; for if the human mind is so exceedingly 
slow at the work of invention and discovery as I 
have often heard you represent it to be, it is an ob* 
vious inference, that Ave are not to look for many 
of those gigantic strides which place the man of 
genius far in advance of his contemporaries. The 
chances are, therefore, that singular views are erro- 
neous views. Hence a proper diffidence in himself, 
a sense of that liability to error which no one 
ought to feel more deeply than the philosopher, 
should make him hesitate when he finds his opi- 
nions peculiar to his own mind. 

N. True, it should make him review them, probe 

glimmering dawn of a darkened apartment, for enjoying in 
safety the light of day." — Dissertation on the Progress of Phi- 
losophy, by Ditgald Stewart, p. 23. On this subject a remark- 
able letter addressed by Mirabeau to Sir Samuel Romilly has 
recently appeared in the life of the latter by his sons, vol. i. 
p. 294. I have given a copious extract from it in the Appendix, 
Note K. 



236 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OE KNOWLEDGE. 

them to the quick, try them by every possible test ; 
but having done this, it would be absolutely cul- 
pable to suppress them merely from the considera- 
tion that they were singular, and therefore likely 
enough to be tainted with error. The latter, in- 
deed, is a condition under which every man must 
promulgate his opinions. 

A. But to return to the . numerous diversities of 
opinion in society : my remark on that head was 
intended to apply not to the discrepancies in the 
opinions of the same mind, but to the differences 
subsisting between individuals and classes. It is 
astonishing, that with access apparently to the 
same sources of knowledge, under the same civil 
and political institutions, with almost perfect free- 
dom of intercommunication, operated upon daily 
by the same current of periodical intelligence from 
one end of the land to the other, pursuing similar 
occupations and similar amusements, the people 
should be divided into so great a variety of sects 
and parties, many of them of the most dissimi- 
lar and opposite modes of thinking. The fact is 
strikingly shown by the publications, and parti- 
cularly the periodical publications of the day. 
Thus, not to mention that there is one set of 
journals for the ministerial party in politics, an- 
other for the opposition, another for the reformers, 
with advocates for a thousand intermediate shades 
of opinion, we have journals for the evangelical, 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 237 

the orthodox, the unitarians, the methodists, the 
deists, the phrenologists, the co-operatives, and 
others which might be specified ; and these ad- 
vocating, each of them, doctrines essentially re- 
pugnant and contradictory to those of all the 
rest. Is it not strange, that under the influence 
of all the common circumstances which I have 
just enumerated, such very opposite views should 
prevail, and be advocated not only with considerable 
knowledge and skill, but with the most thorough 
conviction of their truth ? Does it not prove, 
either that truth is unattainable in moral, religious, 
and political inquiries, or that men have rushed 
into the midst of these subjects without stopping 
to ascertain the first principles on which they all 
must agree, and thus have involved themselves in 
a chaos of contradictions ? 

N. You recollect, I dare say, the remark of 
Locke, that although we cannot affirm that there 
are fewer opinions prevalent in the world than there 
are, yet fewer persons entertain them than we are 
apt to suppose ; most people not having any clear 
ideas on those questions about which so much con- 
troversy is raised, and on which they themselves 
loudly assert their positive judgment. 

A. But still you must allow, that the leading 
minds of each party do really hold them, especially 
in cases where interest is out of the question, which 
is sufficient for my purpose, it being in fact still 
more extraordinary that minds of this description, 



238 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

minds consequently of considerable powers and su- 
perior information, with the same sources open to 
them, should exhibit such contradictory appear- 
ances, or in other words entertain such opposite 
views. 

N. Such discrepancies show, that the individual 
circumstances which shape our opinions predominate 
over the general causes to which we are all sub- 
jected. They can exist only in a very imperfect 
state of knowledge, such as I have contended ours 
to be, where men's modes of thinking have resulted 
from chances of a thousand kinds, and have not 
originated in a systematic deduction from undeni- 
able premises. You, I think, have well described 
the general course of even thoughtful men, rushing 
into the midst of subjects without an examination 
of first principles and a regular progress from them ; 
or rather they find themselves from circumstances 
in the midst of the subjects, and never think of re- 
mounting to any primary truths, or stepping out of 
the magic circle described around them by the age 
and country and rank in which they came into ex- 
istence. Engrossed with the established ideas of 
their system, they exercise their ingenuity in dis- 
covering the relations of its parts ; and in the plea- 
sure of the occupation, they never think of setting 
themselves at a distance from it, viewing its external 
aspect, marking its position in the world of intellect, 
surveying its relations as a whole to truth and to 
nature. This is frequently exemplified in the labo- 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 239 

rious- trifling of antiquaries and commentators, who 
will often display wonderful skill and acuteness in 
the adjustment of some worthless point, which their 
own exertions alone have invested with something 
like importance. The weakest theory, or the most 
fallacious system of philosophy, will, in like manner, 
hold in bondage the strongest minds, who are often 
so intensely occupied with its intrinsic relations as 
to forget its extrinsic absurdity. In the limits by 
which they are thus circumscribed, they sometimes 
exert the highest powers of intellect, and leave 
nothing for us to bewail but the barriers with which 
birth and education and other circumstances have 
surrounded their understandings. A mind thus 
hemmed in is in a situation somewhat similar to 
that of a man who has been shut up in a strong 
castle from his birth, and has therefore had no 
means of viewing the outward appearance and rela- 
tive position of the building. His conception too of 
external objects, as it has been acquired merely by 
glimpses through the winter, is narrow and imper- 
fect ; and his comparative estimate of such external 
objects, and those within his reach, must be dispro- 
portionate to their real difference. Let him once 
escape from the castle, and his ideas undergo a 
complete revolution. He gets into the pure breezes 
of heaven, the open daylight, and the free exercise 
of vision. A similar happy transition is experienced 
by the mind which has once disengaged itself from 
the prejudices of any system in which it has been 



240 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

cooped up. With regard to the diversities of views 
and doctrines which have led to these remarks, I 
rejoice to see them. I am glad to see the co-operative 
erecting his parallelograms, and the phrenologist 
mapping out the skull. I cannot comprehend that 
delicate sensitiveness which is alarmed at novel and 
extraordinary opinions, as if the structure of society 
would be demolished, and the globe itself shattered 
by their promulgation. 

B. How then are we to deal with doctrines which 
appear to be dangerous ? Are we to stand idle and 
allow them free course ? 

1ST. Examine them: look them in the face: if 
they are false, they will vanish before the gaze of 
scrutiny : if they are true, I dare any man to say 
that they ought to vanish. 

B. Your reply is what I expected, but I have 
another question to ask in which you may find more 
difiiculty. Truth is one, error is pernicious ; how 
then can you rejoice is the existence of diversities 
by which the uniformity of truth is excluded. 

N. When I say I rejoice, I speak of course in 
reference, not to what is absolutely good, but to 
our actual state. The world is full of ignorance 
and error, and I am glad to see a zealous pursuit 
of even singular and eccentric views, as the means 
of ultimately lessening the evil. Tentative pro- 
cesses of this kind are indeed indispensable steps. 
The grand experiment which Mr. Owen is making 
in America, even if it miscarry, is sure to throw 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 241 

light on the principles of human nature.* Even 
the modern phrenology, should it prove utterly 
unfounded, will be of use. The prosecution of its 
inquiries will furnish a body of curious facts to the 
philosophical speculator ; and if ultimately exploded, 
it will be to the philosophy of mind what alchemy 
was to chemistry, and astrology to the true science 
of the heavens. f The same benefit I own does not 

* Mr. Owen's scheme has failed, and has thrown light on the 
principles of human nature. 

f " Without the attractive chimeras of astrology, without the 
energetic delusions of alchemy, whence (asks M. Comte) should 
we have derived the constancy and ardour necessary for the 
long series of observations and experiments which have served 
in after times for a foundation to the first positive theories 
respecting both classes of phenomena ? " With regard to phre- 
nology, it has certainly made way amongst men of science, and 
besides other testimonies to the validity of its fundamental 
principles from high quarters, has the voice of the eminent 
philosopher just named in its favour. It may be added, that 
the curious phrenological phenomena (real or illusory) which 
every body has of late years had an opportunity of witnessing, 
demand the impartial and rigorous scrutiny of all lovers of 
truth. It has been lamented as a misfortune in these cases, 
that interesting investigations are taken up by incompetent 
hands and almost abandoned to them, partly in consequence of 
a sort of daintiness, or a fear on the part of scientific inquirers 
of compromising their reputation, and partly from that force of 
prejudice from which few human beings are exempt. Yet to 
look at the matter more comprehensively, such incompetent 
handling is perhaps no misfortune at all. Subjects are in this 
way forced into discussion when they would otherwise remain 
neglected for long periods, awaiting the thaw of philosophic 
pride or prejudice ; valuable materials are accumulated, and the 
fastidious or scornful philosopher is at length compelled to 
attend to the investigation in self-defence. 

R 



242 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

spring from a diversity of religious sects, because 
theology is considered as a matter not open to pro- 
gressive improvement. Each sect has its fixed 
doctrines, and the object is not to discover new 
truths, but to prevent any lapse from the principles 
prescribed. All inquiry with them is after new 
arguments to support old opinions. Yet here, 
although intellectual enterprise is discountenanced, 
contention and collision are brought into play ; the 
contention of rival sects and the collision of hostile 
opinions, forcing an examination of points which 
men would fain shield from inquiry, extorting con- 
cessions which can no longer be decently withheld ; 
and thus producing some of the good effects of that 
spirit of research and discovery which in less im- 
portant sciences meets with such lavish encourage- 
ment. Although each sect may consider its own 
system as perfect, it has charity enough to assist in 
stripping other systems of their errors. 

B. Then you regard all these diversities of think- 
ing with great complacency ? 

N. They are really exhilarating in an enlarged 
view of the subject. At any given point of the 
progress, in any given state of knowledge or of 
ignorance, it is much better that the ignorance and 
the error should be of a multiform than a uniform 
character. With my views, therefore, it is some- 
what ludicrous to see the anger, the vexation, the 
resentment, with which the generality of men re- 
gard those who differ from them in opinion. Such 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OE KNOWLEDGE. 243 

difference seems to be felt as a sort of personal 
offence, as an intolerable grievance which must be 
repressed. Wounded self-love looks around it, and 
can find nothing short of an act of parliament or a 
judicial sentence adequate to the task of avenging 
its wrongs. What is the simple light, however, in 
which philosophy and common sense would see 
these differences? They would see, first, that the 
subject in question required examination ; and, 
secondly, that it was likely to obtain the examina- 
tion which it required. The permanent existence 
of any differences of opinion on any subject shows 
of itself, either that truth has not been fully at- 
tained by any of the dissentient parties, or that it 
has not been deduced in the most perspicuous 
method ; and, therefore, that there is still a neces- 
sity for animadversion and discussion. 

B. It is implied then in your view of the subject, 
that truth in these matters is attainable ; that there 
are certain determinate principles which may be 
discovered, and from which indisputable deductions 
might be made. 

N. Certainly. I see no reason to doubt it, and 
our friend A, who is so sanguine as to the progress 
of knowledge, must inevitably accord with me. 

A. True : but others may ask how are such prin- 
ciples to be ascertained? 

N. By a very slow but a tolerably sure process ; 
by generation after generation thinking, and speak- 
ing, and writing ; by proposing doubts and hypo- 

r 2 



244 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

theses ; by criticism, by argument, by ridicule ; by 
all the play and contention of wit and folly, scep- 
ticism and pertinacity, sophistry and good sense. 
From these discordant elements let loose on every 
possible subject of- inquiry, we may ultimately ex- 
pect that enlightened and lasting unanimity which 
always attends the clear and simple exhibition of 
truth. 

B. But still you will allow, that there are some 
subjects which will probably ever remain dubious, 
difficult, and obscure; and which, as long as the 
world lasts, must inevitably engender differences of 
opinion. 

N. I will not undertake to say that there is no 
subject which is doomed to be encumbered with 
eternal difficulties ; but this I will venture to affirm, 
that of whatever kind they are, they will be accu- 
rately estimated and set in their proper light. The 
nature and the degree of the evidence on each point 
will be appreciated ; the valid inferences, few or 
many, which the subject affords, will be clearly 
shown; the absurd conclusions previously drawn 
from it will be exploded ; what it will and what it 
will not furnish will be rendered equally manifest ; 
and although the obstacles to a perfect comprehen- 
sion of it may never be surmounted, there may be 
complete unanimity as to the character of the diffi- 
culties which it presents. No reason can be as- 
signed why all this should not be accomplished, 
however slowly and gradually it may be done, and 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 245 

this ip in fact for us, for human beings, the attain- 
ment of truth. 

B. Although I am not, for my own part, very 
sanguine as to any great progress in the human 
race, I would not deny that there might be a con- 
siderable one amongst a few superior minds, who 
are to be found in every age, and who, forming an 
unbroken series, might carry on indefinitely the 
work of perfecting the sciences : but I much doubt 
the possibility of any corresponding, or rather any 
commensurate progress in the multitude. It is one 
thing for the sciences to go on improving, and 
another for the mass of mankind to become pro- 
gressively partakers of such improvements. 

N. The progress will be slow ; nor will I under- 
take to maintain that it will be altogether com- 
mensurate with the advances of those superior 
minds to whom you refer ; but nothing I think can 
prevent it. The same principles of human nature 
which render a science progressive among learned 
and studious men, will make knowledge progressive 
in every class. There is a certain measure of intel- 
ligence, or rather there is a certain set of notions, 
which every one inevitably imbibes, even the lowest 
of society ; a certain atmosphere of knowledge 
breathed in common by all ; and these notions de- 
pend upon the state of knowledge amongst those 
whose particular business it is to apply themselves 
to its cultivation. Now the correctness- or incor- 
rectness of the notions thus imbibed, makes no dif- 

r 3 



246 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

ference in the ease with which they are acquired. 
The mind of a child receives with as little difficulty 
the enlightened opinions prevalent in the best 
English society as the ruder notions of the Hindoo 
or Hottentot. Unless, therefore, the communica- 
tion between the high and the low, the learned and 
the unlearned, is cut off, the latter cannot help 
partaking of the progress of their superiors. But 
it requires no evidence to show, that the tendency 
of modern improvement, far from threatening to 
interrupt or embarrass this communication, is de- 
cidedly to render it easy and complete. In fact, 
the sources of intelligence are open to all ranks in- 
discriminately. External obstacles to the general 
spread of sound knowledge are fast giving way. It 
is in the nature of the human mind itself, that we 
shall detect the most formidable impediment. We 
shall find it generally true, that discoveries are 
both slowly made, and slowly received and adopted. 
After a man has arrived at maturity, trained in 
certain fixed principles, prejudices, and habits, it is 
impossible to change them essentially ; and, even if 
his opinions could be changed, his associations and 
feelings would prove rebels to his intellect. Hence, 
as I have before observed, it is the young on whom 
any improvement is to be impressed ; and hence it 
is an age at least which must be granted for its 
perfect establishment. Thus the wisdom of the 
pre-eminent few of one generation cannot become 
the common property, the familiar instrument of 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 247 

the crowd, till the next or a still later age ; and it 
appears to me, that this process is one which com- 
paratively little can be done to hasten, but which 
much may be done to perfect and extend. 

A. Here again we come to our old point of dis- 
agreement. After all you have urged, I see no 
reason for departing from the opinion which I be- 
fore maintained, that the wider and wider diffusion 
of knowledge amongst mankind must inevitably 
accelerate the progress of the race. The scope of 
your doctrine, which appears to me to involve a 
striking inconsistency, is to show, that a greater 
number of mankind may be made to partake of the 
progress, but that the rate of the progress cannot 
be quickened. You maintain in effect, that the 
general dissemination of knowledge has little or no 
tendency to render mankind readier to part with 
their prejudices ; that what each man learns in his 
youth he must retain with a pertinacity equal and 
unalterable ; and that even the most enlightened 
individual of the present day, after he has reached 
a certain age, is as callous to further improvement, 
as firmly indurated in his notions, as inaccessible 
to new ideas, as the rude barbarian of the Ame- 
rican wild, or the benighted chieftain of the middle 
ages : or if you do not go quite so far as this ; if 
you would reject this application of the doctrine to 
the philosopher, you must at least maintain that 
the nature of the opinions which an ordinary man 
imbibes in that atmosphere of intelligence described 

r 4 



248 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

by you as surrounding his infancy, can make no 
difference as to the tenacity with which they subse- 
quently cling to him. In all this there appears to 
me to be an inconsistency for which I can account 
only by supposing, that it has been concealed from 
your view by a strong prejudice as to the slow pro- 
gress of the race, resulting from a disappointment 
of your sanguine visions on this subject in early 
life. What ! supposing a man's mind to be imbued 
in youth with liberal and enlightened sentiments, 
supposing him to gather without any direct effort 
on his own part, but from the actions and conver- 
sation of those around him, " that the human mind 
is necessarily fallible, that therefore it should never 
close itself against new light, that it should be 
constantly accessible to fresh ideas, and ever on 
the watch to correct its errors ; that truth and not 
its own importance should be its sacred object in 
all inquiries and on all subjects," — supposing a 
man, I say, to be imbued with these views, are we 
to conclude that notwithstanding their influence he 
would be as inveterate, as stubborn in his preju- 
dices, as unsusceptible of melioration as the most 
benighted of his species ; as the deluded victim, for 
example, who casts himself under the chariot 
wheels of an idol, the superstitious devotee who 
heroically lashes himself as he conceives into the 
favour of God, or the furious bigot who exter- 
minates heresy by the rack and the scaffold? 

When the matter is put in this light, I think 



ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 249 

you must allow, that in proportion to the real in- 
telligence of men will be their openness to convic- 
tion, their disposition to receive new ideas, their 
readiness to review their cherished opinions ; and 
that a step of improvement may come in time to 
require something less than an age. 

B. But you have forgotten another part of our 
friend's remark, in which I am fully disposed to 
join him, the necessary slowness with which the 
human mind makes any improvements, any inven- 
tions or discoveries. 

A. To this part of his remarks an equally con- 
clusive answer may be given. A great part of the 
slowness with which discoveries have succeeded 
each other, may be ascribed to the tardy and li- 
mited diffusion of knowledge. N. himself has 
made the remark, that one discovery must spring 
from another ; that a man of inventive genius 
must rise from the height to which the labours of 
his predecessor have carried him. Now for a 
series of improvements and discoveries of this kind, 
I see no necessity for the intervention of long pe- 
riods of time. If a man of original talent has the 
power of rising from the discoveries of his prede- 
cessor, he may do it, or begin to do it, from the 
moment they are known to him ; and thus one 
man taking up the achievements of another, there 
may be a series of them even amongst contempo- 
raneous inquirers. The only requisite condition 
seems to be a ready and immediate promulgation 



250 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

of all that is accomplished. Formerly indeed what 
any one man discovered made its way slowly and 
laboriously to others engaged in the same pursuit. 
Perhaps he would pass from the scene before his 
labours were understood and appreciated, and in 
such a state of imperfect inter-communication a 
barren interval must undoubtedly elapse between 
almost every successive discovery in the same 
science. This lapse of time, however, was required 
solely to propagate the intelligence amongst those 
who were likely to make use of it. At present, 
when the diffusion may be effected with the in- 
stantaneousness of lightning, when the world has 
become an immense whispering gallery, and the 
faintest accent of science is heard throughout every 
civilized country as soon as uttered, the requisite 
conditions are changed. Long intervals are no 
longer necessary, and the career of improvement 
may be indefinitely accelerated. Besides, not only 
are discoveries more rapidly communicated to 
discovering minds, and the intervals of the series 
reduced almost to nothing, but with the general 
diffusion of knowledge, more of these original in- 
tellects start forth, and thus another cause is 
brought into operation to swell the train and 
hasten the triumph of science. 

N. Your observations are ingenious, and to a 
certain extent perfectly just, nor do I know that 
they are at all inconsistent with my own views, 
except inasmuch as they lead to expectations of too 



ESSAY ON THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 251 

sanguine a character. The process of improve- 
ment, and the circumstances which tend to accele- 
rate what has been significantly and sometimes 
sneeringly termed the march of mind, you have 
accurately described. The only real difference 
between us is as to the rapidity of the progress ; 
and I still think, that if you were to examine the 
condition of society with a severe scrutiny, if you 
were to make yourself practically acquainted with 
the intellectual state of the mass, if you were to 
see, as I have seen, that the glare of modern civili- 
zation is owing to the superficial illumination which 
the intelligence of a comparatively few has cast 
over the many, — in thus perceiving how little had 
actually been done, you would be inclined to grant 
more time for the evolution of those great and 
glorious results, which we unite in hailing as the 
ultimate destiny of the human race. 



APPENDIX 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



APPENDIX. 



Note A. Page 7. 

Although the following account referred to in the text 
may appear at first sight to have little connection with the 
subject of the present volume, yet, on reflection, it will be 
found to illustrate the great change in feeling which is 
consequent on the progress of knowledge and civilization, 
especially as to the value of human life. 

" On the 26th of January, 1796, when the Indefatigable 
was lying in Hamoaze, after having been docked, the 
Dutton, a large East Indiaman employed in the transport 
service, on her way to the West Indies, with a part of the 
2d or Queen's regiment, was driven into Plymouth by stress 
of weather. She had been out seven weeks, and had many 
sick on board. The gale increasing in the afternoon, it 
was determined to run for greater safety to Catwater ; but 
the buoy at the extremity of the reef off Mount Batten 
having broke adrift, of which the pilots were not aware, 
she touched on the shoal, and carried away her rudder. 
Thus rendered unmanageable, she fell off, and grounded 
under the citadel, where, beating round, she lay rolling 
heavily with her broadside to the waves. At the second roll 
she threw all her masts overboard together. 

" Sir Edward and Lady Pellew were engaged to dine 
on that day with Dr. Hawker, the excellent vicar of Charles, 
who had become acquainted with Mr. Pellew when they 
were serving together at Plymouth as surgeons to the ma- 
rines, and continued through life the intimate and valued 
friend of all the brothers. Sir Edward noticed the crowds 



256 APPENDIX. 

running to the Hoe, and having learned the cause, he 
sprang out of the carriage, and ran off with the rest. 
Arrived at the beach, he saw at once that the loss of 
nearly all on board, between five and six hundred, was in- 
evitable, without some one to direct them. The principal 
officers of the ship had abandoned their charge and got on 
shore, just as he arrived on the beach. Having urged 
them, but without success, to return to their duty, and 
vainly offered rewards to pilots and others belonging to the 
port to board the wreck, for all thought it too hazardous 
to be attempted, he exclaimed, ( Then I will go myself ! ' 

" A single rope, by which the officers and a few others had 
landed, formed the only communication with the ship ; and 
by this he was hauled on board through the surf. The danger 
was greatly increased by the wreck of the masts, which 
had fallen towards the shore ; and he received an injury 
on the back, which confined him to his bed for a week, in 
consequence of being dragged under the mainmast. But 
disregarding this at the time, he reached the deck, declared 
himself, and assumed the command. He assured the 
people that every one would be saved, if they quietly 
obeyed his orders ; that he would himself be the last to 
quit the wreck, but that he would run any one through 
that disobeyed him. His well-known name, with the 
calmness and energy he displayed, gave confidence to the 
despairing multitude. He was received with three hearty 
cheers, which were echoed by the multitude on shore ; and 
his promptitude and resource soon enabled him to find and 
apply the means by which all might be safely landed. His 
officers in the meantime, though not knowing that he was on 
board, were exerting themselves to bring assistance from 
the Indefatigable. Mr. Pellew, first lieutenant, left the 
ship in the barge, and Mr. Thompson, acting master, in 
the launch ; but the boats could not be brought alongside 
the wreck, and were obliged to run for the Barbican. A 
small boat, belonging to a merchant-vessel, was more for- 



APPENDIX. 257 

lunate. Mr. Edsell, signal midshipman to the port ad- 
miral, and Mr. Coghlan, mate of the vessel, succeeded, at 
the risk of their lives, in bringing her alongside. The ends 
of two additional hawsers were got on shore, and Sir 
Edward contrived cradles to be slung upon them, with 
travelling ropes to pass forward and backward between 
the ship and the beach. Each hawser was held on shore 
by a number of men, who watched the rolling of the wreck, 
and kept the ropes tight and steady. Meantime, a cutter 
had with great difficulty worked out of Plymouth pool, 
and two large boats arrived from the dock-yard, under the 
directions of Mr. Hemmings, the master-attendant, by 
whose caution and judgment they were enabled to ap- 
proach the wreck, and receive the more helpless of the 
passengers, who were carried to the cutter. Sir Edward, 
with his sword drawn, directed the proceedings, and pre- 
served order, — a task the more difficult, as the soldiers 
had got at the spirits before he came on board, and many 
were drunk. The children, the women, and the sick, were 
the first landed. One of them was only three weeks old ; 
and nothing in the whole transaction impressed Sir Edward 
more strongly than the struggle of the mother's feelings 
before she would entrust her infant to his care, or afforded 
him more pleasure than the success of his attempt to save 
it. Next the soldiers were got on shore ; then the ship's 
company; and, finally, Sir Edward himself, who was one 
of the last to leave her. Every one was saved, and, pre- 
sently after, the wreck went to pieces." 

After noticing the modesty of Sir Edward in his account 
of the affair in which he almost kept himself out of sight, 
his biographer proceeds : " Services performed in the 
sight of thousands could not thus be concealed. Praise 
was lavished upon him from every quarter. The cor- 
poration of Plymouth voted him the freedom of the town. 
The merchants of Liverpool presented him with a valuable 
service of plate. On the 5th of March following he was 



258 APPENDIX. 

created a baronet." Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth, by 
E. Osier, p. 115, &c. 

Note B.~ Page 133. 

The only passage of any length in the first edition of 
the " Essay on the Pursuit of Truth," that has not been in- 
corporated one way or other in this second and enlarged 
edition, occurred in this part of the treatise. The author 
not being able to find an appropriate place for it without 
encumbering the train of argument, has deemed it best to 
relegate it to the Appendix. 

After speaking of the upright man who is unfortunate 
enough to be the unconscious instrument of disseminating 
error, the passage proceeds as follows : — 

" To such a misfortune all men are liable, and this lia- 
bility imposes on them the duty of communicating their 
opinions in a spirit of candour and liberality. In danger, 
with the utmost circumspection, of falling into mistakes, it 
becomes them to evince an entire openness to correction, a 
willingness to listen to opposite suggestions, a readiness to 
review their most cautious conclusions, and a perpetual sense 
of their own fallibility. They should endeavour, too, to 
separate the consideration of their own reputation from the 
cause of truth. 

" A man who communicates his views to the world is 
or ought to be an inquirer after truth ; and it is of little 
importance to him in that capacity, when a mistake has 
been committed and detected, which part of the process is 
his. That an error has been cleared up, that a truth has 
been discovered, should occasion too much pleasure to his 
mind to permit it to dwell long on the personal consider- 
ation of the agency through which it has been accom- 
plished. 

" This openness to conviction, nevertheless, is perfectly 
consistent with a severe examination of all opposite allega- 



APPENDIX. 259 

tions, and a free exposure of antagonist sophistry. Let 
him reply, retort, return the scrutiny of his opponents, 
and especially expose any unfairness or malevolence which 
may characterise their opposition ; but let him at the same 
time cheerfully acknowledge any error of which he may 
be convicted ; let him pay the most scrutinizing attention 
to hostile criticism, not to find out merely how to reply to 
it, but how far it is fairly applicable. 

" Were we to imagine a being, who while he was free 
from the moral weaknesses of human nature, was still 
subject to its intellectual fallibility, the following is the 
kind of language we should expect to hear from him, on 
his giving to the public the result of any investigations in 
which he had been employed. 

" In communicating these speculations to the world, I 
do it under a full sense of my liability to error, and of 
the chances that I have fallen into many mistakes, not- 
withstanding the patient thought which I have bestowed 
on the subject, and the various means I have employed to 
insure correctness. Future philosophers, I am. aware, 
will see in a much clearer light the truths here developed, 
and will present them in a much more lucid and con- 
vincing order: divested too of the inaccuracies which 
surround them in my pages. These inaccuracies I have 
not the slightest wish to see spared. So far from desiring 
any one to forbear pointing out errors in my reasoning, I 
shall feel greatly indebted to him for the correction of a 
fallacy. One of the ends which I seek to accomplish by 
laying these speculations before the public, is to avail 
myself of the instruction arising out of the different views 
which different minds take of the same subject. And not 
only will any one confer a real benefit on me by dissi- 
pating my errors, but he will prevent my speculations 
from spreading erroneous opinions among mankind, and 
counteracting any advantages which might result from 

s 2 



260 APPENDIX. 

such of them as are well founded. Nothing can be more 
abhorrent to the feelings of a man of upright mind, than 
that errors should be perpetuated merely to preserve his 
reputation for correctness, and save his vanity from mor- 
tification: nothing therefore ought to be received with 
more gratitude than an indication where those errors He. 
It at once enlightens his own mind, and saves him from 
being the instrument of injury to his fellow-creatures, 
when he thought of doing them a service. 

(e On this point I have only one request to make, that 
the existence of an error may be shoion, not merely as- 
serted; and that any fallacy in reasoning may be directly 
pointed out, rather than met by counter-arguments drawn 
from different premises. When any train of reasoning is 
fairly laid down before us, if it involves an error the fal- 
lacy may be detected and exposed. For any such de- 
tection then I shall be grateful. I am willing to review, 
to discuss, to analyse again any principle which I have 
maintained, and should rejoice to emancipate myself from 
any illusion. 

" Should any one intermix his exposure of my errors 
with opprobrious language, it will be to his own detriment 
and disgrace ; but it shall not prevent me from taking 
advantage of his perspicacity to clear my understanding 
from inaccurate conceptions. While I shall do my best 
to seize the truth of his arguments, I shall also in the 
same spirit of fairness endeavour to appreciate and exhibit 
in its true colours. that unfortunate junction of malignancy 
of disposition with intellectual power of which he has 
afforded the melancholy spectacle. 

" If on the other hand the objections brought against 
any of my doctrines appear to me, after the fullest and 
fairest examination, to be unsound, I shall not hesitate on 
my part to expose their character. To this task I shall 
devote the utmost acuteness of which I am master, and 
undertake as close and severe an examination of their 



APPENDIX. 261 

pretensions as I should desire might be bestowed on my 
own. 

" In a word, as truth is my object, I shall endeavour to 
find it by every means in my power, and shall freely join 
in the exposure of error, whether found in preceding- 
writings, in my own productions, or in those of my an- 
tagonists." 

Note C. — Page 179. 

The author has been desirous of treating this question 
respecting prescriptive conclusions, in its broadest appli- 
cation to knowledge of all kinds, and not merely in re- 
ference to politics or to theology. In the latter point of 
view, the subject has been discussed by one of the subtilest 
intellects of the eighteenth century, in a short essay from 
which Mrs. Austin's recent translation of "Fragments 
from German Writers," enables me to present to the 
English reader an interesting extract. 

"But is not an association of clergymen, — a church 
assembly or a venerable classis as they call themselves in 
Holland, — justified in binding itself by oath to certain 
immutable articles of faith, in order to exercise a perpetual 
supreme guardianship over each of its members, and in- 
directly through them over the people ? I answer such a 
thing is totally inadmissible. A compact of this kind, 
which is entered into with a view to exclude the human 
race from all further enlightenment, is simply null and 
void, even though it be confirmed by the sovereign power, 
by diets, and the most solemn treaties. One age cannot 
bind itself ; nor can it conspire to place the following one 
in a condition in which it would be impossible for it to 
extend its knowledge, to purge itself from error, and to 
advance in the career of enlightenment. This were a 
crime against human nature, whose highest destination 
consists emphatically in intellectual progress; and pos- 

S 3 



262 APPENDIX. 

terity is, therefore, fully justified in rejecting all such 
attempts to bind it, as invalid and mischievous. 

ee A combination to maintain an unalterable religious 
system, which no man should be permitted to call into 
doubt, would, even for the term of one man's life, be 
wholly intolerable. It would be to blot out, as it were, 
one generation in the progress of the human species 
towards a better condition ; to render it barren, and hence 
noxious to posterity. A man can, indeed, retard his own 
intellectual progress, though even then only for a time, as 
regards things which it is incumbent on him to know ; 
but utterly to renounce it for himself, and far more for 
posterity, is an outrage on the most sacred rights of 
humanity. Now, what a people ought not to determine 
for itself, a monarch ought still less to determine for it ; 
for his legislative character and dignity rests on his being 
the depository and organ of the collective will of his 
people. If he does but ascertain that every real or sup- 
posed spiritual improvement consists with the existing 
order and tranquillity of society, he may safely leave his 
subjects to do what they think necessary for the good of 
their own souls : in that he has no right to interfere ; his 
business is to take care that none of them forcibly obstruct 
their neighbours in their endeavours to settle their own 
opinions, or to promote their own spiritual welfare by any 

means within their reach." 

***** 

" In considering the enlightenment by which men 
emerge from their self-imposed pupilage, I have insisted 
mainly on religion ; because in science and art rulers have 
no interest in assuming the part of guardians over their 
subjects ; and because pupilage in this matter is not only 
the most mischievous, but the most degrading of any. 
But the views of an enlightened ruler go still farther, and 
tend to this, — that, even as regards his government, there 
is no danger in allowing his subjects to make a public use ■ 



APPENDIX. 263 

of their own reason, and frankly to lay before the world 
their opinions as to any practicable improvement in it, or 
their criticisms of its present state and acts ; — of this we 
have before us a splendid and hitherto unequalled ex- 
ample." — Essay by Kant, entitled "What is Enlighten- 
ment ? " in his Kleine Schriften. 

Note D. — Page 180. 

The very important consideration, briefly stated at the 
conclusion of this Section, will be found more fully ex- 
panded in the following extract from a work referred to in 
a previous chapter. Every upright and conscientious 
mind must agree in regarding the question started, or 
rather the position taken, as demanding the most attentive 
and dispassionate scrutiny, apart from any particular ap- 
plication. The passage may possibly remind the reader 
(sometimes in the way of contrast) of certain portions of 
Bishop Hare's celebrated Letter on Private Judgment *, 
or of Dr. Paley's Chapter on Religious Establishments 
and Toleration; but I am not aware that the peculiar 
view of the subject here presented, taken as a whole, is to 
be found in English literature : — 

" The course of my subject has brought me to the con- 
sideration of the third sort of practices enumerated in a 
former letter. The real character of these has been 
hitherto little regarded, but can scarcely be mistaken by 
any one who reflects for a moment on the necessary con- 
sequences of annexing emoluments and honours to the 
profession of a given doctrine, or, in other words, to the 
ostensible adoption of a predetermined conclusion. 

" By this time I hope you will so far agree with. my 
views as to admit that the duty of every inquirer into the 

* The Difficulties and Discouragements which attend the Study of 
the Scriptures in the Way of Private Judgment, in a Letter to a 
Young Clergyman. By Francis Hare, D.D. 

s 4 



264 APPENDIX. 

authenticity and meaning of any alleged revelation from 
God, is nothing more or less than complete and impartial 
investigation; and hence if any reward but that which 
springs from the discharge of a duty and from the attain- 
ment of knowledge, is to be held up to his view, it 
assuredly ought to be contingent on the proper prose- 
cution of the inquiry, whatever may be the issue. If he 
is to be artificially incited at all, he should be incited to 
perform the part of a diligent and honest inquirer. But 
no one can gravely maintain that to annex the reward to 
a prescribed result, to a predetermined verdict, is the way 
to encourage or secure fairness and sufficiency of examin- 
ation: on the contrary, you and every body else must 
admit that it is nothing less than bribing the inquirer into 
negligence and unfairness : it is setting up his worldly 
interest in opposition to his duty to God. No conclusion 
can be more palpable than this. Those who deny it must 
maintain either that a complete and faithful examination 
of any alleged message from the Deity is not the duty of 
human beings, or that exhibiting certain advantages to 
accrue from arriving at a prescribed conclusion has no 
tendency to impair diligence and impartiality during the 
process of inquiry. The one position is at variance with 
all our moral sentiments; the other with all our expe- 
rience of mankind. There can be no doubt, my dear 
Hassan, that the consequences of the doctrine here main- 
tained are irreconcileable with some current notions and 
existing establishments ; but what can be more clearly 
deducible from the undeniable truth that our own duty to 
God requires from us a complete and unbiassed examin- 
ation of any alleged message from him, than the kindred 
truth that it must be wrong in us to present inducements 
to any other human being which have the tendency to 
render his examination of the same solemn subject incom- 
plete and partial? And what inducement can operate 
more effectually to render his inquiry slight and negligent 



APPENDIX. 265 

and unfair, and thus to seduce him from the direct path 
of duty, than holding out emoluments and honours as the 
consequence of deciding on one side rather than the 
other? The immorality of this proceeding, and its con- 
sequences upon the conduct of the inquirer, are equally 
incontestable. 

" Figure to yourself, my friend, a young man, who, 
while he is desirous to discharge every duty, and ardent in 
the pursuit of truth, is at the same time ambitious of 
power, wealth, and distinction. A career is open to him, 
in which these latter desires may be gratified on the single 
condition of professing and teaching certain established 
tenets, and performing certain offices grounded upon 
them. Is it to be supposed that before he accepts the 
tempting offer, his candour and conscientiousness will be 
sufficiently strong to induce him to institute a fair and 
rigid examination of tenets on which his wealth and 
station are to depend ? and after he has accepted it, will 
the inducements to the performance of that duty be 
strengthened or increased ? The result is not very doubt- 
ful ; he shuns inquiry and accepts the office, and from 
that moment all probability of any fair investigation is at 
an end : he becomes an intellectual slave bound in golden 
fetters: he is no more free to pursue truth, than the 
chained eagle is free to soar into the sky ; or, rather, he is 
quite as free to pursue it as the muezzin to throw himself 
from the minaret, or as the traveller to leap from the 
summit of the great pyramid ; that is to say, at the risk 
of consequences ■ — of utter destruction. 

" And is it possible not to perceive that, besides 
putting an end to impartial examination, this species of 
bribery is a bounty on hypocritical pretension ? Is there 
one man in ten thousand, who, looking forward to the 
prospect of living in the enjoyment of worldly advantages 
from the profession of certain opinions, will shrink from 
that profession in the first instance, or subsequently 



266 APPENDIX. 

abandon it, because he finds it impossible to believe in the 
opinions professed ? Can there be a more effectual method 
of creating insincerity, as well as indifference to truth, 
and can there be a practice more destructive of moral 

worth and real piety ? 

# * # # # 

" I cannot close without repeating, that independently 
of engendering hypocrisy and persecution, and putting a 
stop to the progress of truth, to bestow rewards on theo- 
logical opinions, — to make the profession of them the 
condition of honours and emoluments, — is at variance 
with the highest principles of religious and moral obliga- 
tion. If it is our personal duty to the Almighty to 
examine with full attention and rigorous impartiality any 
revelation attributed to him, it is an offence against both 
God and man to tempt others by the offer of any advan- 
tages to deviate from the same course." — Letters of an 
Egyptian Kafir in search of a Religion (printed by 
G. H. Davidson), pp. 109, et seq. 

The extract given in the next Note from De Tocque- 
ville, shows very strikingly that such temptations are not 
limited to theological opinions, nor are held out only by 
state authority. 

Note E. — Page 181. 

" In America, the majority raises very formidable 
barriers to the liberty of opinion : within these barriers an 
author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent 
it, if he ever step beyond them.* Not that he is exposed 
to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the 
slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political 

* It was sagaciously remarked by Kant, that " we find a strange 
and unexpected contradiction in human affairs, which, indeed, when 
regarded as a whole, are full of paradoxes. A higher degree of civil 
freedom would appear favourable to freedom of opinion, yet does, in 
fact, impose insuperable barriers to it." 



APPENDIX. 267 

career is closed for ever, since he has offended the only 
authority which is able to promote his success. Every 
sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to 
him. Before he published his opinions, he imagined that 
he held them in common with many others ; but no 
sooner has he declared them openly, than he is loudly 
censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who 
think, but have not the courage to speak, like him, 
abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed 
by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides 
into silence, as * if he were tormented by remorse for 
having spoken the truth. 

<( Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments 
which tyranny formerly employed; but the civilisation 
of our age has refined the arts of despotism which seemed, 
however, to have been sufficiently perfected before. The 
excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of 
physical means of oppression ; the democratic republics of 
the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair 
of the mind, as that will which it is intended to coerce. 
Under the absolute sway of an individual despot, the body 
was attacked in order to subdue the soul ; and the soul 
escaped the blows which were directed against it, and rose 
superior to the attempt; but such is not the course 
adopted by tyranny in democratic republics : there the 
body is left free and the soul is enslaved. The sovereign 
can no longer say, e You shall think as I do on pain of 
death ; ' but he says, f You are free to think differently 
from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all 
that you possess ; but if such be your determination, you 
are henceforth an alien amongst your people. You may 
retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, 
for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens if 
you solicit their suffrages ; and they will affect to scorn 
you, if you solicit their esteem. You will remain among 
men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. 



268 APPENDIX. 

Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being ; 
and those who are most persuaded of your innocence 
will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their 
turn. Gro in peace ! I have given you your life, but it is 
an existence incomparably worse than death.' 

" Monarchical institutions have thrown an odium upon 
despotism ; let us beware lest democratic republics should 
restore oppression, and should render it less odious and 
less degrading in the eyes of the many, by making it still 
more onerous to the few." — Democracy in America, by 
A. de Tocqueville, Reeve's translation, vol. ii. p. 160. 

The sort of social proscription here described is much 
more prevalent in England, particularly in provincial 
society, than philosophers seem to be generally aware of, 
and is dependent on causes not peculiar to republics. 
M. de Tocqueville's representation of the treatment of 
opinions in America is, however, too favourable. It is 
not, as he states, there rendered " entirely an affair of the 
mind." We do not witness, indeed, a priestly auto-da-fe 
in the streets of Boston, or a headsman in Cincinnati, but 
we see " physical means of oppression " equally horrible. 
Not many years ago the governor of South Carolina 
recommended the summary execution, without benefit of 
clergy, of all persons caught within the limits of the State 
holding avowed anti-slavery opinions; and this savage 
recommendation was backed by a select committee of the 
legislature.* Further, this atrocious spirit has not con- 
tented itself with mere recommendations; houses have 
been sacked and destroyed, public buildings burnt to the 
ground, human beings seized, flogged, and murdered with 
the express object of punishing and putting down the 
holders of such opinions. Amos Dresser, a student, was 
arrested, tried before a self-constituted tribunal at Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, found guilty of being a member of an 

* Society in America, by Harriet Martineau, vol. ii. p. 350. 



APPENDIX. 269 

Anti-slavery Society in another state, of having books of 
an anti-slavery tendency in his possession, and of being 
believed to have circulated such in his travels. For these 
offences (incredible as it may appear), in the year 1835 
(not 1535), in an " enlightened republic," he was stripped 
and flogged with a heavy cow-hide in the public market- 
place amidst the acclamations of the people ! But the 
most affecting instance of martyrdom for opinions in the 
second quarter of the nineteenth century, is the case of a 
young man named Lovejoy — an abolitionist, a clergyman, 
and editor of a newspaper. Four times his types and 
press were destroyed by mobs, and still he persevered in 
the resolution of maintaining his ground at all hazards. 
Being required by a committee of the citizens of Alton, 
in the state of Illinois, where he had taken up his resi- 
dence, to leave the place, he addressed a large assembly 
before which he was summoned, 

" Pale, but intrepid ; sad, but unsubdued," 

in an unpremeditated speech, which, for courage, justness 
of thought, pathos, modest but immoveable firmness, — in a 
word, moral sublimity, has seldom been equalled. Such 
qualities among such a people sealed his doom. A few 
days afterwards, his office was surrounded by a mob, and 
he was murdered on his own premises, having received 
five bullets in his body.* Further comment would be 
superfluous. 

Note F. — Page 201. 

There is just now an instructive instance going on in 
the medical profession, and amongst scientific men gene- 
rally, of the reception given to new doctrines. I allude 

* See a deeply interesting article in the Westminster Review, 
No. LXIL, entitled « The Martyr Age of the United States." 



270 APPENDIX. 

to what is usually termed Mesmerism. Without entering 
upon the question respecting its claims to credence, which 
this is not the place to discuss, it is very obvious to all 
who are conversant with the subject, that whatever those 
claims may be, there is a singularly curious field for in- 
quiry which cannot fail to produce interesting and im- 
portant results ; and from which no philosopher who, in 
the phrase of the day, understands his mission, will turn 
away. Either the great mass of alleged facts in Mes- 
merism are true ; or the power of imposture, and the sus- 
ceptibility of being imposed upon possessed by mankind, 
transcend any thing previously apprehended. If the latter 
is the conclusion to which philosophers shall be ultimately 
driven, the laws of this power and of this susceptibility of 
deception, will form almost as curious a matter for investi- 
gation, as the Mesmeric phenomena would themselves do 
on the supposition they were real.* On either issue, 
therefore, the whole subject is extremely worthy of atten- 
tion to the highest intellects ; and yet ordinary men have 
turned from it with angry scorn, refusing even to cast 
their eyes on the appearances before them, reminding one 
of the conduct of those candid lovers of truth, who after 
the invention of the telescope, refused to look through it 
because it would have clearly shown them their own 
errors. But the object of this note is not to stimulate the 
reader to an investigation of Mesmerism, or inspire him 
with any sentiments in its favour, but to direct his atten- 
tion to what more immediately concerns our subject, 
namely, the mode of its reception ; to incite him to seize 
the present opportunity of watching the way in which 
men are instigated by their prejudices, preconceptions, 

* " Are not," asks Dugald Stewart, " the mischievous consequences 
which have actually been occasioned by the pretenders to animal mag- 
netism, the strongest of all encouragements to attempt such an exa- 
mination of the principles upon which the effects really depend, as 
may give to scientific practitioners the management of agents so pe- 
culiarly efficacious and overbearing." — Elements, vol. iii. p. 222. 



APPENDIX. 271 

and personal interests, to conduct themselves towards new 
doctrines. 

It has been remarked by an eminent philosopher, that 
we cannot now find any language in the process of form- 
ation as described by theorists, unfolding itself in in- 
flexions and terminations ; but in the instance before us 
we are more fortunate. Nature may be truly said to be 
caught in the fact ; we may watch the whole development 
from first to last of the reception given to the announce- 
ment of new phenomena and novel inferences. We may 
study it in all its stages from birth to death, and on a 
scale on which we shall never have an opportunity, 
perhaps, of studying it again. 

Note G. — Page 205. 

The theory of population still remains to be settled by 
a master-hand. Mr. Malthus had a candid and an accom- 
plished mind, well calculated to bring out a theory in 
a striking and popular form, but too destitute of precision 
and depth to do justice to one of the most difficult subjects 
in the whole range of political economy. At the very 
outset he takes an enormous leap to a point which it is 
doubtful whether he could have gained by the legitimate 
and laborious process of digging his way, and making sure 
of every step. 

Any one who wishes to study the subject, and therefore 
to look at both sides, will do well not to be repelled by 
the unwieldy volumes of Mr. Sadler, nor should he over- 
look the comparatively brief work of Mr. Doubleday. 

With regard to Mr. Bicardo, who was a good deal over 
estimated in his day, the present writer published a free 
commentary on some of his doctrines in 1825 (when the 
fame of that eminent economist was at the highest), under 
the title of " A Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Mea- 
sures, and Causes of Value," the main conclusions of 



272 APPENDIX. 

which, although the author was in some quarters much 
abused for them at the time, while equally lauded in 
others, subsequent research and reflection have tended to 
confirm ; and he has observed many of them to have been 
since silently adopted by contemporary economists, some- 
times to an extent that ought in mere justice to have been 
accompanied by an acknowledgment of the source from 
which they were drawn.* A very striking instance of this 
in a quarter where it was least to be looked for, the author 
forbears to mention. 

Note H. — Page 222. 

The inevitable extension of the methods employed in 
physical science to moral and political investigation is now 
almost universally acknowledged; the following repre- 
sentation of it may be new to the reader : — 

" While I highly appreciate the ultimate importance of 
clear and forcible exhibitions of moral truth, I am apt to 
indulge the hope of a surer and speedier effect from the 
progress of that physical philosophy to which I have ad- 
verted, especially since I have become better acquainted 
with its advances in this country. Compared with the 
English, wef, my friend, are in these matters mere 
children. In our part of the world, physical science being 
either visionary or empirical, or both united, could not be 
expected to have any effect in improving morals and 
politics by the superiority of its methods. But here it is 
pursued on rigorous principles, which must ultimately be 
applied to knowledge of every kind. 

* This cannot be said of Mr. de Quincey, who in his recent work, 
"The Logic of Political Economy," has honoured the "Dissertation 
on Value " with divers comments. Whether these are just or not, the 
present writer having seen the volume only for a few moments while 
revising this sheet, is not in a condition to say; but he feels quite 
sure from Mr. de Quincey's abilities and attainments, that his logical 
views on any subject must be exceedingly valuable. 

f Namely, the Egyptians or Moslems generally. 



APPENDIX. 273 

" The practices of rejecting mere gratuitous hypotheses, 
of demanding facts, of requiring every step of reasoning 
to be clearly exhibited, of looking for perfect precision in 
the use of terms, of discarding rhetorical illusions and 
mere phrases, of scouting pretensions to infallibility or 
exemption from rigorous scrutiny, are all prevalent here, 
all recognised as indispensable in physical research, and 
cannot possibly be confined to the department of material 
philosophy. They will necessarily be extended to moral 
inquiries ; and even supposing that, in consequence of 
social proscription, or priestly or political tyranny, these 
latter subjects were totally abandoned, received no direct 
examination, were exposed to no discussion for even a long 
period, were withheld (if we can conceive it possible) from 
. the very thoughts of men for half a century, yet the in- 
fluence of physical investigation upon them could not in 
the end be prevented. All the correct principles of rea- 
soning, all the improved methods of research, all the habits 
of comparison and discrimination, all the love of truth 
which the pursuit of any science has a tendency to es- 
tablish or engender, all the impatience of vagueness and 
obscurity and assumption which the prosecution of in- 
quiry superinduces upon the spirits of men, would gather 
round the prohibited subjects, ready, like hungry lions, to 
rush on what they had been withheld from, by the bars 
and bolts and chains of social or political despotism."* 

Note I. — Page 232. 

This being hooted from society in consequence of pro- 
fessing particular opinions has really occurred in the 
United States of America since this was written. The 
following extract confines itself to hooting (at which, how- 
ever, the people did not stop, as lamentably shown in a 

* Letters of an Egyptian Kafir, p. 134= 
T 



274 APPENDIX. 

former note), and is probably one of the most forcible repre- 
sentations of what that term includes ever penned. Speaking 
of the friends of the abolition of slavery, the writer says : 
" They met in smaller or larger numbers from time to 
time ; they met for refreshment and for mutual strength : 
but it was in the intervals of these meetings, the weary, 
lonely intervals, that their trials befel them. It was when 
the husband was abroad about his daily business that he 
met with his crosses : his brother merchants deprived him 
of his trade ; his servants insulted him ; the magistrate 
refused him redress of grievances ; among his letters he 
found one inclosing the ear of a negro ; or a printed hand- 
bill offering large rewards for his own ears or his head ; 
or a lithographed representation of himself hanging from a 
gallows or burning in a tar-barrel. It was when the wife 
was plying her needle by the fire-side, that messages were 
brought in from her tradesmen that they could supply her 
no longer, or that letters dropped in with such contents as 
the following : — 

" e Madam, 
" e I write to inform you that personal violence is in- 
tended on you and your husband this evening. 

" i Yours in haste, 

" f An Abolitionist.' " 
" i Beware of nine o'clock.' " 

" It was in the course of ordinary life that their children 
came crying from school tormented by their school-fellows 
for their parents' principles ; that youths had the doors of 
colleges slammed in their faces, and that young men were 
turned back from the pulpit and the bar."* 



* See the article before referred to, entitled " The Martyr Age of 
the United States," Westminster Review, No. LXII. p. 15. 



APPENDIX. 275 



Note K. — Page 235. 

Extract from a letter dated London, March 1. 1785, 
from the Count de Mirabeau to Sir Samuel (then Mr.) 
Romilly : — 

" ( He was happy,' said I, one day in speaking of Fon- 
tenelle. These words, which ought to find a joyful echo 
in every good breast, alas ! one hardly ventures to utter 
them. Hatred and envy have ever made Fontenelle's 
happiness a cause of reproach to him. They made it a 
crime in him that he did not draw down upon himself 
persecution from the prejudices of his age ; that he showed 
to others only half of those truths of which he saw the 
whole; that he drew aside one veil from the image of 
truth, only to throw over it another ; that he exhibited 
genius trembling before prejudices which ought to have 
trembled before him. What a passion is Envy ! without 
relaxation she pursues the man of genius, throwing back 
upon him all the torment she suffers at his hands. If he 
utter a complaint, she says that he is lowering himself by 
retaliation ; if he be silent, his silence is insensibility to 
insult; if his uncompromising spirit lead him to make 
popular error the object of his undisguised attack, she 
paints him as a factious spirit, with whom nothing is 
sacred ; if his prudence soften truth, in order that it may 
not be exposed to the outrage of the multitude, she 
accuses him of having stifled it in its birth, and of having 
sacrificed the eternal rights of mankind to a few days of 
repose. Doubtless we must admire those vigorous and 
intrepid spirits who proclaim truth in all the splendour and 
dignity with which their own genius has clothed her ; and 
who not satisfied with the glory of discovering her, aspire 
to that of suffering, and, if need be, of dying for her. I 
shall always respect Fenelon writing Telemachus in the 
court of Louis XIV., and Sir Thomas More publishing 

T 2 



276 APPENDIX. 

the Utopia in the palace of Henry VIII. These noble 
spirits hallow the age which dishonoured itself by perse- 
cuting them. But while one sheds tears of pity and 
admiration at the thought of such heroical self-devotion, 
one regrets that the human mind should not have benefited 
by them as it ought. I come, my friend, to the conclu- 
sion, that to sacrifice one's self for truth is not the way to 
ensure its triumph. Persecution which spreads the pro- 
gress of error, arrests that of reason ; and philosophers do 
not, like fanatics, multiply in exile, in prison, and under 
the axe of the executioner. Perhaps there have been 
countries and ages in which the boldest truth, announced 
on a sudden to a sovereign people, forced upon the atten- 
tion of an immense multitude by all the powers of elo- 
quence, might have eifected a revolution [in opinion] at 
the very moment of its utterance ; and it were noble to 
sacrifice one's self to such a hope as this. But in our days 
time only can give to truth the victory over prejudice; 
with us the reign of truth is not the dazzling sway of some 
new creation of genius, but it is the imperceptible influence 
of general intelligence, by which error is overthrown with- 
out the sound of its fall being heard. 

" This is the point of view, my dear Romilly, in which 
this Fontenelle, whom I have so long despised, only 
perhaps because of all men of genius he is the one to 
whom nature has made me the most unlike, appears to me 
to be so remarkable. Truth seems in his eyes to be like 
that ancient statue of Isis, which was covered with many 
veils ; he thinks that every age should remove one veil, 
and only raise the next for the age which is to follow. 
He knows men and he fears them, not only because they 
are capable of doing much harm, but because it is very 
difficult to do them any good ; and he has found the means 
of doing them good by the practice of an art which would 
doubtless never have been resorted to by a more energetic 
and impetuous character, but which in him has made even 



APPENDIX. 277 

timidity and discretion subservient to the progress of the 
spirit of philosophy. At one time he bows down for a 
moment before an error of his own age, and then raising 
himself from this constrained attitude of respect, in its very 
presence, he aims a blow at a similar error which has 
deluded all antiquity. At another time he places by the 
side of error a truth which he appears to sacrifice and 
subject to her, but which is sure to be triumphant provided 
it be allowed to remain there even at such a cost.* Often 
he parades prejudices in all their pretensions, and even 
grants them that which from the fear of appearing too 
absurd they do not claim. At those times when homage 
is expected from him he is silent, and this silence always 
occurs at a place where it will be best understood, and 
give least offence. Sometimes, on the other hand, he is 
eager to appear unnecessarily submissive and obsequious, 
and by so doing shows that there are unjust and suspicious 
tyrants whom one must distrust. In general, instead of 
attacking errors one by one, he devotes himself to the task 
of exposing and drying up in the human mind the sources 
whence they spring. He aims at giving new light and 
strength to that power of intelligence which is destined to 
subvert them all, and by so doing raises up against them 
an eternal enemy. Thus he attacks them by respect, 
destroys them by homage, pierces them on all sides with 
shafts of which they have no right to complain ; and 
although they have always an eye upon him as upon their 
most dangerous enemy, he lives and dies in peace in the 
very midst of them. 

" Without any disparagement to my own impetuosity, 
this method may very possibly, my dear friend, be the 



* We are here reminded of a passage in Playfair. " Error," he 
says, " is never so sure of being exposed as when the truth is placed 
close to it, side by side, without any thing to alarm prejudice, or 
awaken from its lethargy the dread of innovation." — Works, vol. ii. 
p. 426. 



278 APPENDIX. • 

best, and no less entitled to respect than mine, and it is 
certainly far more conducive to personal tranquillity ; but 
as it does not and never will suit my character, I begin to 
feel a great inclination for idleness, even that of mind, 
and above all a very lively regret for inroads on my time 
occasioned by human observances, the fantastical opinions 
of other men, and the conventions of society."* 

* Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, by his Sons, vol. i. 
p. 293. The translation above given is the same as that in the Me- 
moirs, with a few verbal alterations. 



THE END. 



London ; 

Printed by A. Spottiswoope, 

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